General Government Output and Productivity 2008-2014

This publication describes the way the volume of general government production is compiled in the Danish National Accounts and how this can begin to form a basis for calculating productivity in general government.

The volume growth in the production of public individual services is calculated using a variety of volume indicators (the output method). Some of these are the number of treatments carried out by the healthcare authorities, the number of students in various educational institutions, the number of children in pre-schools, the number of elderly in day care centers and residential homes for the elderly.

The output method was introduced in the Danish National Accounts with the major revision published in September 2014 and is applied for the years 2008 onwards.

The volume growth in public collective services, as for example public administration and police, is still calculated by deflating the value of the inputs used in production by relevant cost indices (the input method).

The introduction of the output method in national accounts is the first necessary step towards calculating productivity in some parts of general government and some results are presented in this publication.