The IDCM dataset covers publicly available selected national accounts data (gross domestic product and main aggregates, population and employment) as published by Eurostat, the IMF, the OECD and the UN.
It is the result of a regular data exchange set up by the International Data Cooperation (IDC) initiative under the Inter-Agency Group on Economic and Financial Statistics (IAG), which is chaired by the IMF. The aim is to develop a set of commonly shared principles and working arrangements for data cooperation that could be implemented by the participating international organisations, leading to the improved timeliness and accuracy of published data (link).
The key concepts captured by the main aggregates datasets of the national accounts cover the following indicators:
a. Gross domestic product (GDP)
Main indicators from Output, Expenditure and Income approaches.
Note: GDP income components and other income measures are only available at current prices. In some cases, owing to the national data availability, there might be some gaps or incomplete presentation of the data if comparing more advanced and less advanced economies.
b. Population and employment
While not strictly national accounts aggregates, these variables are widely used in a national accounts context. Employment and its components are important economic indicators in their own right, and they serve for the construction of derived indicators, such as per capita or per persons employed, allowing country comparisons.
Total population of a country, on a given date, consists of all persons - whether national or foreign - who are permanently settled in the economic territory of the country, even if they are temporarily absent from it. A person who is staying, or intends to stay, in the economic territory of the country for a period of one year or more is regarded as permanently settled there. By definition, the total population excludes foreign students during their study in a country and members of foreign armed forces stationed in a country. The definition of population in national accounts differs from the present, or de facto, population, which consists of persons actually present in the geographic territory of a country on a given date. It also differs from the registered population.
Employment covers all persons engaged in productive activity that falls within the production boundary of the national accounts. Persons in employment are employees or self-employed persons. Persons holding more than one job are classified as employees or self-employed according to their main job.
Quarterly and annual
For information about the naming convention (series key dimensions and metadata), refer to the IDCM underlying DSD (NA_MAIN) maintained by the ESTAT.
National currency
National accounts compilation follows the national practices and principles laid down in the System of National Accounts (SNA) and the European System of Accounts (ESA).
European aggregates are produced by Eurostat. G-20 and OECD special aggregates are produced by the OECD and are only available in USD.
Seasonally adjusted, or seasonally and working day-adjusted, figures are compiled and/or provided by the sending organisation. The most commonly used adjustment approaches are – in various versions – X-12-ARIMA and TRAMO-SEATS.
Details can be obtained from the data providers: Eurostat, the IMF, the OECD and the UN.
National accounts, main aggregates, non-European countries (International Data Cooperation) - IDCM
European Central Bank
Download the series catalogue containing a full list of series and associated metadata of the dataset IDCM in CSV format (zipped)