Statistics New Zealand has only recently completed new estimates of national productivity for the economy. The new figures refer to what Statistics calls the “measured sector” of the economy. This definition excludes some industry sectors and local and central government and is said to be more representative of the commercial sector. The new estimates run from 1987/88 to 2004/05 and it has been stated that they will be extended backwards as time and resources permit. Statistics employs the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC). This system contains 117 separate categories and is known as ANZIND. The published statistics on GDP are aggregated to 30 industry categories. In Philpott’s time, the published system included 22 industry categories.

Bryan Philpott last contributed to this subject in 1999 with the publication of data sets for real gdp, labour employed and real gross capital stock for the period 1960-1990 (Philpott 1994, 1999). His data is all converted to 1982/83 prices and is based on the then official data collections. In 2005 I updated the Philpott data base to the year 2002 with the help of official sources and arranged for the data set to be placed on the Motu website. This data set is consistent with the earlier New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (NZSIC). 

In this note, Dr Robin Johnson compares the basic productivity estimates using the two sets of data and identifies where data changes and improvements in data recording have influenced the results.

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