Methodological Note: Better Interpreting Gross Domestic Product
Summary: A short IHSI note written for users of Haiti's real-sector statistics, explaining aspects of GDP that are routinely misread. It clarifies what the aggregate does and does not measure and how its movements should be interpreted. Useful precisely because Haitian GDP figures are frequently quoted without these caveats.
Key Findings
- The note explains GDP as the wealth created inside the country by resident economic agents, regardless of their nationality.
- IHSI states that Haiti currently calculates GDP using the production approach and the demand or expenditure approach, while the income approach is not used because of difficulties collecting income data.
- The note says IHSI uses direct sources such as structural surveys for major account revisions and indirect administrative sources for annual GDP estimates.
- The System of National Accounts recommends changing the national accounts base year every five to ten years to capture structural changes, improve data reliability and adopt new international recommendations.
- Haiti's May 2021 rebasing selected fiscal year 2011-2012 as the new base, 25 years after the previous 1986-1987 base.
- The 2012 GDP was revalued from 327.9 billion current gourdes under the old base to nearly 570 billion current gourdes under the 2011-2012 base, an uplift of 73.8 percent.
How to cite
Haitian Institute of Statistics and Informatics (IHSI), 2024, Methodological Note: Better Interpreting Gross Domestic Product, https://ihsi.gouv.ht/public/documents/methodologie/PIB - Note Méthodologique 2024.pdf