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Historical national accounts

Tables of Historical National Accounts comprise two different types of National Accounts figures. Backcast figures which are consistent with the latest compilations, and obsolete published figures, which shed light on the available National Accounts figures for the observers, of bygone periods, of their contemporaneous economy.

Introduction

The most important descriptive tool of the macroeconomy of, say, Denmark is the current compilations of the National Accounts, henceforth abreviated as Statistics Denmarks current National Accounts.

This page covers two different meanings of ”Historical National Accounts”:

  • backcast National Accounts figures, which are consistent the figures of the current National Accounts, but covers previous periods, and
  • obsolete published figures of the National Accounts, meaning figures which, for different reasons, partly or wholly are not consistent with the current National Accounts from Statistics Denmark.

Why are both interesting?

Backcast National Accounts figures are interesting because, they extend the consistent description of the Danish economy backwards in Time, further than the current National Accounts figures go. These extended figures help us see the business cycles (the aggregate motion of the economy) over the longer term.

Obsolete published figures of the National Accounts are interesting for those who would like to understand how observers were able to view the economy of their own times, e.g. from the 1950’ies and 1960’ies, of the 1940’ies and 1950’ies.

What is the difference?

Very briefly differences are accounted for by three factors: compilation manuals, the division of labour in the organization of the World’s production, and the coverage of available statistics.

From the first modern sets of National Accounts figures emerged in the 1930’ies and 1940’ies much research has been conducted and conceptual refinement has found their way into the international compilation manuals from organizations, like United Nations (UN) and the OECD. These changes of the basic manuals, changes in the organization and distribution of productive activities across national boundaries (e.g. the increasing globalisation of production) has changed details of even fundamental concepts like Gross Domestic Product (GDP; in Danish: bruttonationalproduktet, BNP).

Economic-political data requirements for a more precise description of the Danish economy’s structures and dynamics increased historically the means with which to provide important improvements in the systematic statistical coverage of areas such as business statistics and labour market statistics.

These three factors combined changes the requirements of and the ability to provide a more precise description of the economy. For this reason the published figures of different compilation regimes, of overlapping years, are usually different even for the exact same years.

To gather what is similar, and separate what is different, we har introduced the somewhat technical term ”National Accounts compilation regimes”, here anre elsewhere abreviated ”NA-regimes”, or ”compilation regimes”.

Previously published figures and descriptions from the Danish National Accounts have revealed 19 different NA-regimes, from the first was published in December 1945, until the lastest, the current, which started in 2016.

Introduction to key the concepts Gross Domestic Product (GDP; in Danish: bruttonationalprodukt, BNP), Gross National Income (GNI; in Danish: bruttonationalindkomst, BNI) and Gross Domestic  Product in factor prices (in Danish: bruttofaktorindkomst, BFI) may be found elsewhere on pages concerning the Danish National Accounts.

Documentation

Published figures of the Danish National Accounts are divided into 19 separate, official compilation regimes:

Name of compilation regimes

Main release vehicle (-s), in Danish

NR1945

Statistiske Efterretninger 1945:52, d. 14. december

Statistiske Meddelelser 4/129/5, 1948

NR1948

Statistiske Efterretninger 1948:25, d. 11. juni

NR1951

Statistiske Meddelelser 4/140/2, 1951

NR1955

Statistiske Meddelelser 4/160/2, 1955

NR1960

Statistisk oversigt 1948-1959, udgivet 1960, samt Statistisk årbog 1960, udgivet 1961

NR1962

Statistiske Undersøgelser 7, 1962

NR1965

Statistiske Efterretninger 1965:59, d. 15. dec.

NR1972

Statistiske Efterretninger 1972:79, d. 20. dec.

NR1978

Statistiske Efterretninger 1978:A20, d. 29. august,

Statistiske undersøgelser nr.30 og 31, 1973

NR1981

Statistiske Efterretninger 1981:A30, d. 22. september, ”National­regnskabsstatistik 1966-1981”, udgivet 1983

NR1984

Statistiske Efterretninger 1984:18, d. 23. december, ”National­regnskabsstatistik 1983”, udgivet 1985

NR1995

Statistiske Efterretninger 1995:12, d. 19. juni, ”National­regnskabsstatistik 1994”, udgivet 1996

NR1997

Statistiske Undersøgelser 46, 1997

NR2000

Statistiske Efterretninger 2000:03, d. 13. april, ”National­regnskabsstatistik 1999, Aprilversion”, udgivet juni 2000,

”Nationalregnskab ENS95. Makroøkonomiske tidsrækker 1966-1997”, udgivet 2001.

NR2005

Statistiske Efterretninger 2005:08, d. 26. juli”, ”National­regnskabsstatistik 2003”, udgivet september 2005

NR2009

Statistiske Efterretninger 2009:15, d. 09. nov., ”National­regnskab 2008”, udgivet januar 2010

NR2011

Statistiske Efterretninger 2011:11, d. 15. september, ”National­regnskab 2010”, udgivet februar 2012

NR2014

”Nationalregnskab og offentlige finanser, ESA 2010, Hovedrevision 2014”, udgivet september 2014

Statistiske Efterretninger 2014:13, d. 22. december

NR2016,

det aktuelle

Statistiske Efterretninger 2016:11, d. 15. nov.

In addition there is a half-official compilation regime:

Name of compilation regimes

Main release vehicle (-s), in Danish

BU1958

Kjeld Bjerke og Niels Ussing: Studier over Danmarks nationalprodukt 1870-1950, Kbh., 1958. Udsendt af Statistisk Departement sammen med Københavns Universitet, Økonomisk Institut.

and some unofficial compilation regimes:

Name of compilation regimes

Main release vehicle (-s), in Danish

SH1983

Svend Aage Hansen: Økonomisk vækst, bind II, Akademisk forlag, Kbh., 3.udg., 1983. Publikation nummer 6 fra Københavns Universitet, Institut for Økonomisk Historie.

En meget anvendt kilde, med talrækker til 1818. Kan betragtes som en tilbageføring af NR1962, med en videreføring ved NR1965 og NR1972.

SL2010

Larsen, Hans Kryger; Søren Larsen og Carl-Axel Nilsson: ”Landbrug og industri i Danmark 1896 -1965. Nye beregninger af bfi inden for de varefremstillende sektorer”, Historisk Tidsskrift, bind 110, nr.2, 2010. Siderne 358-401. 

Her anvendes alene tallene for 1947-1965, der skyldes Søren Larsen. En tidligere version af disse tal for 1947-1965 har været indarbejdet i visse af den økonomiske model ADAMs databanker, som tilbageføring af NR1984.

Five main publications of obsolete sets of National Accounts figures, in addition to access to the figures of their tables: 

Bjerke, Kjeld, og Niels Ussing: Studier over Danmarks nationalprodukt 1870-1950, Statistisk Departement og Københavns Universitets Økonomiske Institut, G.E.C Gads forlag, 1958. Due to unresolved intellectual property rights we are presently unable to provide this as a pdf-document.

Statistisk Departement: Nationalproduktet og Nationalindkomsten 1930-1946, Statistiske Meddelelser 4. række, 129. bind, 5. hæfte, 1948.

Statistisk Departement: Nationalproduktet og Nationalindkomsten 1946-1949, Statistiske Meddelelser 4. række, 140. bind, 2. hæfte, 1951.

Statistisk Departement: Nationalindkomsten 1938 og 1947-54, Statistiske Meddelelser 4. række, 160. bind, 2. hæfte, 1955.

Statistisk Departement: Nationalregnskabsstatistik 1947-60, Statistiske Undersøgelser nr.7, 1962.

Zip-files with table contents as MS-Excel-spreadsheets

 

Key figures
 

Related content in Historical national accounts

Contact

Michael Osterwald-Lenum
Phone: +45 39 17 32 05

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