Volume of capital services: New annual and quarterly estimates for 1950 to 2009

Abstract

Capital services are the measure of capital input preferred for analysing and modelling productivity. Along with quality adjusted labour input, the volume index of capital services is a key input to multifactor productivity and growth accounting analyses. This article presents new estimates of capital services for 2009 along with revised estimates for 1950 to 2008. The annual series has been extended by an additional year since the previous release Wallis, Long and Turvey, 2010 with earlier years updated to incorporate revisions throughout the time series. The experimental quarterly series of whole economy capital services has been extended and revised, while this article presents for the first time an experimental quarterly series of capital services growth for the market sector. During 2009 the growth of whole economy capital services fell to its lowest rate since the series began in 1950. Capital services for the market sector experienced negative annual growth for the first time.