Macroeconomic indicators

These forecasts have three main purposes:

• they provide a framework for presenting the economic context in which the budget is developed
• most of the economic aggregates or their sub-components are used in the modelling of taxation and other revenue lines
• forecasts of nominal gross state product (GSP) are used to express key financial aggregates in relation to the size of the economy, such as non-financial public sector net debt to nominal GSP.

The spreadsheet below contains the seven published aggregates for the budget papers (Budget and Budget Update):

• real GSP
• nominal GSP
• employment
• unemployment
• the consumer price index
• the wage price index
• population.

A paper outlining the methods used to forecast the macroeconomic indicators can be found in: