The United States supports a significantly larger weight for GDP simply because this is the best way to recognise the increased importance of fast-growing emerging markets.
An analysis by CLSA, a broking firm, finds that the weight of exports in GDP now exceeds that of private consumption in six of the 11 Asian countries it tracks.So how can Asia lift consumption?
On the demand side, one may point out both a higher income-elasticity of demand for services - reinforced by aging of the population - and to technology trends favoring "software" vis-à¬-vis "hardware" - or "intangible" relative to "tangible" assets - as leading to an increasing weight of services in GDP and employment (IIF, 2015).
The use of GDP weights also gives higher importance to countries less exposed to food insecurity, as consumers in countries with higher GDP tend to be richer, spend a lower proportion of their income on food, and benefit from an economic environment characterized by lower and less volatile consumer price inflation.
A fall in GDP of 1.4%, as unusually mild weather depressed consumption and output of natural gas, became a decline of only 0.4% because the revisions have reduced the weight of this industry in GDP.
In the case of government-bond indices, the more a country borrows, the bigger its weighting.PIMCO, a fund-management giant, thinks it has come up with a better version, which weights issuers on the basis of GDP.
In his speech Mr Ayrault called the weight of public debt, nearly 90% of GDP, "crushing".
According to its calculations, the construction industry contributed 8.5% to GDP in 2008 (the Office of National Statistics weighting is a more modest 6.1% of GDP).
The weight of the oil and gas industry, at 14% of GDP, is less than half what was previously thought.
As the weight of emerging markets in global output increases, the report forecasts that investment will hit 25% of GDP by 2030.
