Archive & History

The EU KLEMS 2019 data repository

This has been the reference page for the EUKLEMS database (Release 2019) run by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw). It incorporates the EUKLEMS Release 2019 financed by the European Commission DG Economic and Financial Affairs (Service Contract No. ECFIN-116-2018/SI2.784491).

The EU KLEMS Release 2019 provides a database provides measures of economic growth, productivity, employment, capital formation, and technological change at the industry level for all European Union member states, Japan, and the US. Productivity measures have been developed using growth accounting techniques. In addition, the EU KLEMS Release 2019 provides supplementary indicators on intangible assets.

An overview and summary of construction issues and methodology please refer to Stehrer et al. (2019). Analytical results based on growth accounting and econometric estimations are reported in Adarov and Stehrer (2019). When using the data, please cite these sources.

The EU KLEMS Release 2019 provides detailed data for the 28 EU Member States and various country aggregates, Japan and the US over the period 1995-2017 (though coverage might differ across countries) and for 40 detailed industries according to NACE Revision 2 (ISIC Revision 4) and twelve industry aggregates (including the total economy).

In addition to the previous EU KLEMS releases this release introduces some new features

  • This EU KLEMS Release 2019 provides two datasets, the statistical database and the analytical database. Whereas the former is fully in line with National Accounts data provided by the national statistical institutes to Eurostat, the latter includes supplementary data on investment flows and stocks emphasised in the recent literature concerning the importance of intangible assets.
    • The reported growth accounts in the statistical database provide a more detailed differentiation of the contribution of various capital assets types to growth. Specifically, growth contributions are split into tangible information and communication (ICT) capital and non-ICT capital, and three types of intangible capital (software and databases, R&D and other intellectual property products) separately.
    • On top of that, additional asset types, which are not capitalised in the National Accounts, are reported in the analytical database. These asset types include additional information on innovative properties and economic competencies following the recent literature on intangible assets.
  • The coverage with respect to EU countries included in this release is partly extended due to better availability of data and the integration of figures for the total economy. Further, comparable data for the US and Japan are provided which allow for comparisons with major EU competitors.
  • The industry classification is extended and better aligned with NACE Rev. 2 (ISIC Rev. 4), though some additional industry aggregates are reported in accordance with the industry classification in the previous releases (which originated from the NACE Rev. 1/ ISIC Rev. 3 classification).
  • Fourth, some methodological refinements are introduced with respect to the construction of data which now start from original data in current and previous year prices. In particular, this allows for a more sophisticated calculation of price deflators which is especially relevant for data on gross fixed capital formation as these can become negative (e.g. in the crisis years). In such cases discontinuities in the calculation of chain-linked volumes and price indices) might arise, which have been tried to circumvent.

Methodological Notes

  • Report (pdf) on methodologies and data construction for the EU KLEMS Release 2019
    Data imputations, and other sources used, are listed in the appendix of the report (estimation procedure). These are carefully documented (i.e. by variable, by industry, and by year) in the Excel files of each individual country, and are flagged in both bulk and query downloads respectively.
  • Growth accounts for the following countries are provided externally:

Improvements & Revisions

  • November 15, 2019
    • CAPTang_QI and CAPIntang_QI included in Statistical Growth Accounts for Japan.
    • In Analytical Growth Accounts value added figures (in current prices, previous year prices, and chain-linked volumes) taking purchased intangible investments into account are included. Data for LAB and CAP are adjusted accordingly.
    • Previous-year price data for intangible assets and industry aggregates for capital stocks (now based on aggregates in current and previous-year-prices) have been recalculated.
    • Analytical Growth Accounts are revised accordingly (i.e. based on more accurate data for CAP and revised industry aggregates).
    • Growth accounts for US replaced using data for labour services in line with previous EU KLEMS releases.

The data are freely available and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International-license. To access the data please go to Download or Query Data. Further details on data construction can be found in the Documentation section.

The EU KLEMS History

EU KLEMS was initiated as a research project funded by the European Commission, Research Directorate General as part of the 6th Framework Programme, Priority 8, “Policy Support and Anticipating Scientific and Technological Needs”. Its original name was “Productivity in the European Union: A Comparative Industry Approach“. The EUKLEMS acronym stands for EU level analysis of capital (K), labour (L), energy (E), materials (M) and service (S) inputs.

The initial project lasted from 2003-2008 and was developed by 18 European research institutes under the coordination of the University of Groningen, Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC). After the end of the Framework Project the EU KLEMS database underwent various updates in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2016. These datasets up to the 2017 release (revised July 2018) can be accessed at http://www.euklems.net.