§ Mr. Pardoeasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the Official Report, a table showing gross national product per head for each year since 1948 together with comparative figures for the United States of America, West Germany, France and Japan.
§ Mr. Denzil DaviesDue to changes in the standardised definitions used in reporting national accounts data to international organisations, comparable figures back to 1948 are not available from international sources. Figures of gross domestic product per head of total population from
502Wdomestic product expressed in real terms to take account of inflation for each quarter from the first quarter of 1974 to the latest available date, using the first quarter of 1974 as a base of 100 in each case, for all member States of the EEC, the United States of America and Japan.
§ Mr. Denzil DaviesThe information available is given in the following table. Only a few members of the EEC produce quarterly national accounts estimates. Figures for Italy and the United Kingdom are included in the table. France and Germany also produce quarterly data but consistent series back to 1974 are not available.
1960 onwards are given on page 8 of "National Accounts ESA Aggregates 1960-1976" (SOEC), expressed in terms of EURs—European units of account. Corresponding figures of gross national product per head are not readily available. As these conversions from national currencies to EURs have been made on the basis of official or market exchange rates they will not necessarily reflect the relationships between the domestic purchasing powers of currencies. The resulting inter-country comparisons may therefore be distorted and of little significance.
A more significant set of comparisons can be achieved by converting national 503W currencies to a common unit on the basis of purchasing power parities but these are not available for all years. The following table illustrates, for 1970 and 1976, the
United Kingdom = 100 1970 1976 Based on exchange rates Based on PPP* Based on exchange rates Based on PPP* United Slates of America 219 161 201 167 France 127 116 167 131 West Germany 140 120 184 127 Japan 87 95 126 106 * Purchasing power parities.