The actual quarterly World GDP was generated from its growth rates

published by the IMF. The following shows how this was accomplished.

3.3.3 Data Issues

The export demand model requires information on World GDP as a proxy for

world economic activity. Nonetheless, quarterly World Real GDP is only reported in

percentage changes along with the quarterly GDP Deflator Percentage Change. A

simple algebraic operations along with one Actual GDP annual record suffices to

reproduce actual GDP values for the entire period of nominal and real series. Yet, the

transformation needs careful attention to how data were first constructed. For

example, the growth rates are not from one quarter to another quarter. Instead they are

from the same quarter in the previous year. In Table 3-1 the percentage change in

2000 Q1 is with respect to 1999 Q1. Indeed, the key is to appropriately sort the series

by quarter and year of the growth rates prior actual GDP series computation. Once the

series are computed, a re-sorting by year and quarter will display Actual GDP values.

Table 3-1. Quarterly GDP Computation Example.

RGDP GDP DEF
%Δ %Δ OVER
GDP
CORR CORR
Date DEF RGDP World GDP World
PER PER
Index
PREV PREV
YEAR YEAR
2004Q4 4.63 6.78 95.42 4.20233E+13 4.0097E+13
2005Q4 4.62 4.80 100.00 4.39657E+13 4.39657E+13
…
2011Q1 3.72 4.17 126.52 5.20793E+13 6.58916E+13
2012Q1 2.99 3.05 130.38

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