Household expenditure surveys (HES) are important statistical endeavours. This type of ‘heavy-duty’ survey is performed in Macau every five years and conducted for twelve months. Throughout that period, the statistics department collects direct information about the income and expenditure of a large sample of households.
These surveys provide a wealth of detailed information about the consumption patterns of its residents, showing their actual spending behavior as precisely as can be possibly achieved. Like all significant surveys, they need time to be read, processed and have its results compared with similar or related data obtained from other sources and procedures.
The findings also provide a basis for the weights that will be used in the estimation of future consumer price indices and, therefore, the corresponding inflation rates. The survey outcomes would be important for just such reason, but their relevance goes beyond that. The very detailed information obtained is a basis upon which we can reach better judgments on the evolution of the economy and, in particular, how economic changes are reflecting on the well-being of their residents. (Well-being as measured, of course, by the levels of consumption of goods and services.)
Indeed, there were significant changes in income and consumption since the casino boom started. In the last five years, however, the economy went through a bumpy period. For the 2013-18 period, the survey comes out with figures for household expenditure implying an annual average growth standing around 0.7 per cent per year.
The value sits not far from what we can get from other sources. Take the data we may obtain from the national accounts, for example. In nominal terms, it tells us that household consumption expenditure went up by 14.6 per cent in those years. Adjusting for the changes in the number of households, we reach a growth figure just over 0.9 per cent per year. This number suggests that consumption growth may have been slightly over-estimated.
Such a result hints that some adjustment to earlier GDP estimates is justified. The difference is not very significant, but a divergence of more than two percentage points in annual growth rates can build up to a noticeable deviation in the overall figures in a few years. Admittedly, the time frames of both indicators do not overlap completely – but alone that is unlikely to explain the gap in the figures stemming from those two sources. There may be an estimating bias operating somewhere, and that is something worth investigating.
