19/10/2014: Of National Accounts and Ministerial Declarations

Here's an interesting take on the role of ESA2010 reclassifications on Euro area growth: http://euobserver.com/news/126110. Strangely, this topic is rarely discussed in Ireland which switched to ESA2010 standards ahead of majority of other countries.

And here's an illustration of the claim by Minister Noonan (made in his Budget 2015 speech) that Irish farming is a EUR26 billion sector:

Somewhere else, someone is producing EUR20 billion worth of 'farming' activity that Minister Noonan knows of... Maybe he or they can point us in that direction. But the above figures include much more than 'farming':

And the above figures include double-counting too, since they come from two different sides of the National Accounts (some of exports are in the Sector Output at factor cost). And they include net subsidies of some EUR1.5 billion (see http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/10/7102014-subsidies-rained-on-irish.html) which no one, save possibly an Irish Minister, can describe as 'activity'.