| Summary: | Recent years have seen a rapid emergence of new disruptive technologies with new forms of intermediation, service provision and consumption, with digitalisation being a common characteristic. These include new platforms that facilitate Peer-to-Peer transactions, such as AirBnB and Uber, new activities such as crowd sourcing, a growing category of the 'occasional self-employed' and prevalence of 'free' media services, funded by advertising and 'Big data'. Against a backdrop of slowing rates of measured productivity growth, this has raised questions about the conceptual basis of GDP and output, and whether current compilation methods are adequate to capture them. This paper frames the discussion under an umbrella of the Digitalised Economy, covering also statistical challenges where digitalisation is a complicating feature such as international transactions and knowledge based assets. It delineates between conceptual and compilation issues and highlights areas where further investigations are merited. The overall conclusion is that, on balance, the accounting framework for GDP looks to be up to the challenges posed by digitalisation. Many practical measurement issues remain, however, in particular concerning price changes and where digitalisation meets internationalisation
|
|---|