In the past few hours, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) has been criticized on social networks for the activity data it published last Tuesday. When reporting the Monthly Estimator of Economic Activity (EMAE) for September, the statistical entity also reported that data for July and August were revised upward, so the The third quarter of the year rose 0.5% compared to the previous three-month period.
This information has led to certain questions ever since The reverse correction prevented us from entering a recession from a technical standpoint. It is something that happens when a decline in GDP accumulates for two consecutive quarters.
In the face of this matter, the organization led by Marco Lavagna issued an explanatory memorandum yesterday to explain the reason for the change. At first they pointed this out The seasonally adjusted EMAE is generated indirectly, adding the seasonally adjusted values for each activity sector. Therefore, A It is possible that a significant increase in some sectors could raise the overall level, even if other sectors show more moderate differences.
Furthermore, they detail that the historically used deseasonalization method applies Mobile filters that recalculate the seasonality and trend cycle every time new data is combined, causing instability in the final months of the series. drawers The new data means not only estimating its seasonally adjusted value, but also recalibrating the previous months and the way the series is distributed Between the seasonally adjusted component and the trend cycle.
“As a result, a trajectory that had previously been interpreted as highly irregular began to be read as a more persistent change in activity level.”. The variance that was previously classified as an “irregular component” is now reassigned to a trend cycle component through this method.. This explains why the trend, which looked negative until August, began to show a positive slope once September was incorporated.They mentioned.
As for September, They pointed out that the sectoral analysis shows that the performance is mainly explained by the contribution of recent months to Financial intermediation (This is largely due to the increase in intermediation services associated with the growth of loans and deposits, both in public and private banks, and because of bank commissions.) Another sub-sector that grew in the month was: Agents and brokerage companies, Due to the high trading volume in public securities.
“In short, the combination of the composition effect, driven by the performance of financial intermediation, combined with… “Re-estimating the seasonally adjusted method, the additional effect of September at the close of the quarter and adjusting against seasonally adjusted GDP, shows that the recent trend of EMAE, which was previously viewed as negative, is now viewed as positive.” They’re closed.
Consult him nation, The official explanation makes sense because it doesn’t use a simple process to deflate the season, it does it by sector, and then they combine the series with the EMAE’s seasonal adjustment, which they also reconcile with quarterly GDP data, said Gabriel Camagneo, of consultancy Outlier. “What they point out is that there were unusual data in September for the brokerage, which generated unusual data for the original EMAE series that month and forced a recalculation of the entire quarter of the seasonally adjusted series.”
“The issue is the September data, especially financial intermediation. Obviously, September was no ordinary month. It had an unusual level of operations on the exchange market and an increase in dollar deposits, linked to the measure of the window of temporary abolition of export duties, which led to an extraordinary jump, overall volatility in the settlement level and also caused a jump in dollar deposits in the financial system. He added that all of this ended up impacting September’s brokerage figure.
According to Camaneo, if you look at credit and peso deposits in September in real terms, they did not perform well, but dollar deposits “flew,” and this leads to a recalculation of the entire quarter. He concluded by saying: “Some may like it more, others less, but that is the explanation. It is clear that the government is exploiting this to say that nothing happened in the third quarter, but that is not what Indec is saying. The organization says that there is a specific problem in a sector that changes the entire chain.”
For his part, economic expert Juan Manuel Telechia confirmed that what is behind the clarification The data ultimately shows that traditional economic activity (construction, industry, wholesale consumption, etc.) is not recovering. “Those that are driving are the other sectors (financial intermediation, mining, agriculture and energy sectors) that specifically drive activity, but not so much employment and consumption,” he said.