Sinn und Unsinn von Quoten auf Basis von preisbereinigten Werten

A major change of the 2005 revision of German national accounts is the introduction of a new price adjustment method. The former fixed price base (last 1995 prices) has been replaced by an annually changing price base (previous year´s prices) with chain linking. But the chain-linked levels in absolute terms (billion Euro) are not additive. The sum of chain-linked sub aggregates (e.g. real gross value added by industries) differs from the value of the chain-linked total aggregate (e.g. real GDP). Thus it is no longer possible to calculate time series of ratios based on deflated values. Economic analysis of structural change or of the inter-sector division of labor thus loses a useful complementary measurement tool.