After the first release of annual European accounts in May 2006, the publication of quarterly European accounts results in a better timeliness and increased frequency.
Unadjusted quarterly data generally show large fluctuations that can be split into a regular quarterly pattern and an irregular component. Seasonal adjustment may be used to filter these fluctuations, so that quarter-on-quarter developments can be better analysed. Unfortunately these methods often require long time series with a quite significant and clean seasonal pattern to provide reliable results and to minimise subsequent revisions. Moreover, they may yield erratic results for series that alternate in sign and have large irregular components, as is the case in the financial accounts and for some specific items of the non-financial accounts.
Consequently, only some time series from the euro area sector accounts are seasonally adjusted (see data provided in the news release and in the Excel sheet).
To smooth fluctuating series without using seasonal adjustment methods the charts available in this section (charts) typically show a moving sum, adding the value of the three preceding quarters to that of the quarter concerned. Of course, this method then presents the developments over the past year and not just those of the most recent quarter; on the other hand this smoothing effect makes the analysis also easier. Chart A1 below illustrates the time lag between the moving sum and the trend that would be obtained through seasonal adjustment.
Chart A1
Presentation of household saving rate (1):
- non-seasonally adjusted
- seasonally adjusted
- seasonally adjusted trend
- ratio of four-quarter-cumulated sums of savings and of disposabale income
(1) percentage of gross disposable income (including net adjustment for the change in net equity of households in pension funds reserves), based on four-quarter-cumulated sums.
For non-financial items(1), the annual growth rate is calculated as the percentage change between the value of the transaction for a given quarter and that recorded four quarters earlier. Let nt be the level of a non-financial transaction; then its annual percentage change g(nt) is calculated as:
The annual growth rate used to analyse developments in the financial accounts refers to the total level of transactions over the year in relation to the outstanding stock a year before. Thus it measures changes in the levels of stocks and is not directly comparable to the growth rates computed for the non-financial accounts. When ft represents the level of a transaction in a particular financial instrument, and Ft represents the level of the corresponding stock outstanding at time t, then the annual growth rate g(ft) is calculated as the sum of the transactions during the year divided by the outstanding stock of the previous year.
Since these growth rates are calculated on the basis of financial transactions, they exclude reclassifications, revaluations and other changes that do not arise from transactions.
(1) Except net lending/borrowing, which is linked to the financial accounts.
