Developing digital economy satellite accounts for macro-economic statistics Nadim Ahmad (nadim.ahmad@oecd.org) and Peter van de Ven (peter.vandeven@oecd.org) Statistics and Data Directorate, OECD
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igitalisation is everywhere and is continuously redefining and transforming our economies and indeed our lives but there are increasing concerns that, as ubiquitous as it is, it is in large part absent from our statistics. For example, the advent of new digital innovations was expected to spark off a new wave of productivity growth, but this has not, at least yet, materialised, raising a number of questions, some of which, and increasingly so, relate to measurement.
Is the conceptual framework robust? When questions are asked around measurement, they generally take two broad forms: •• The first concerns the conceptual boundary of GDP, and whether it is well equipped to capture increases in utility and consumer surplus generated by the explosion in free services provided to consumers (e.g. through search engines, on-line media etc.), or indeed the free services provided by consumers (e.g. their data).
These concerns are of course understandable. The scale and pace of digitalisation impacts not only on the way in which businesses operate but also on the •• The second relates to the difficulties involved in way in which consumers engage with differentiating between price and Digitalisation is businesses and with each other. For quality change in products that are businesses, digitalisation provides rapidly changing. Digitalisation has everywhere and is scope for improvements in production continuously redefining led to a proliferation of new products, processes and access to new markets, or combinations of products (e.g. and transforming our telecommunication services combining but digitalisation itself has also spawned many new businesses, and economies and indeed telephone, internet, navigation tools, ways of doing business, whilst also our lives but there are camera, etc.) and new ways of providing significant scope for profit conducting business, from high street increasing concerns shifting across international borders. sales to e-commerce transactions, or that, it is in large Moreover, digitalisation has also booking taxis and accommodation part absent from our services via digital platforms. All of impacted on the role of the consumer, statistics. with households increasingly engaging these are likely to have had an impact in intermediation services that blur the divide between on the quality of the goods and services delivered, and pure consumption and participative production. therefore the way we measure inflation and economic growth. Indeed, digitalisation may also have had an To address the broader issues concerning the Digital impact on the quality of other, non-digital, services, Economy, in January 2017, the OECD launched for example, the effect of using algorithms and digital a horizontal project “Going Digital: Making the tools on the quality of health and education. Transformation Work for Growth and Well-being”, with Both of these issues have been investigated in some the aim “to help policymakers better understand the depth. Ahmad and Schreyer, (2016), for example, digital transformation that is taking place and create concluded that the GDP accounting framework a policy environment that enables their economies remains robust to the challenges of digitalisation, and and societies to prosper in a world that is increasingly that while digitalisation may have exacerbated, and digital and data-driven” (see www.oecd.org/going-digital/ increased the impact of, long-standing measurement project). Measurement forms an important component challenges around, for example, price measurement, of this effort and this short note provides an overview informal employment, and the treatment of free services, of work conducted by the OECD Statistics and Data these are not entirely new. For example, from a GDP Directorate, over the last two years in this area. perspective, the impact of advertising based models that provided viewers with free TV or radio services in the
Issue No. 69, December 2018 - The OECD Statistics Newsletter 9