What happened to Net National Income?

Back when we were hit in the face by the 26 per cent growth rate for 2015 we concluded the following:

The best we can do to strip out all of this madness is probably to look at net national income which excludes the provision for depreciation from all assets and accounts for net factor income from abroad.

Net National Income at Market Prices grew by 6.5 per cent in 2015 which is probably somewhere around where “the Irish economy” grew at in 2015 rather than the 26.3 per cent that “the economy in Ireland” grew by.

And that is probably still in and around where we think “the Irish economy” grew by in 2015 and maybe also for 2016.  But that is not the story that Net National Income is now giving.  Here are the nominal growth rates of Net National Income from NIE 2015 and NIE 2016:

Real growth rates are not available but it is the revisions we are interested in.  For 2015 we can see that the nominal growth of NNP has been revised up from 6.5 per cent to 10.8 per cent with a figure above ten per cent also reported for 2016.

Net National Income is GDP plus net factor income from abroad (negative in Ireland’s case) less the total economy provision for depreciation and an adjustment EU taxes and subsidies.  It differs from the new GNI* in that depreciation of all assets in taken out (rather than just for foreign-owned IP and aircraft for leasing) and no adjustment is made in NNI for the net foreign income of redomiciled PLCs. 

Still the extent to which these differences affect the growth of each may not be that large.  And that is what we see.  From 2012 to 2016 the average annual growth of nominal NNI in the table above was 7.5 per cent.  Over the same period the average growth of the new GNI* was 7.6 per cent.  There are some differences each year but they track each other pretty well.

So why was the nominal growth of NNI in 2015 revised up from 6.5 per cent to 10.8 per cent?

Looking at Table 1 of the NIE this is almost entirely due to the net trading profits of corporations.  Here are the NIE 2015 and NIE 2016 versions of Table 1.  The final column gives the “change in the change”.  Click to enlarge.

Lots of detail but the key is the change in the change in item 4 – the domestic trading profits of companies.  The 2015 increase in this has been revised up by €10.4 billion.  Further down the table it shows that net factor income from abroad in 2015 has gone from -€53.2 billion in NIE 2015 to -€56.0 billion in NIE 2017.  So we have a €10.4 billion additional increase in the before-tax profits earned in Ireland but less than €3 billion of additional net outflows.  This €7 billion probably added between three and four percentage points to the (nominal!) growth of GNI* in 2015.

The increase in net trading profits of companies seems to be made up of an increase in Gross Value Added and a reduction in the provision for depreciation though this is not certain.  The 2015 increase in the provision for depreciation for the entire economy has been revised down from €30.7 billion to €27.3 billion and though we have a breakdown of this by sector in NIE2016 a breakdown was not published with NIE2015 as Table 2 was entirely suppressed. [The CSO should be given credit for publishing lots of information – and additional breakdowns – that was either suppressed or not provided in NIE 2015].

Although the figures above show revisions for 2015 it seems similar earnings arose in 2016. Domestic trading profits of companies were down €0.5 billion but net factor outflows were €7.2 billion less.  Lots of moving parts but again it seems like the profits generated by Irish companies increased significantly in 2016.  The net foreign income of redomiciled PLCs was up €1 billion without which net factor outflows would have been down by more than €7 billion.

And we also seem to see something similar for 2014.  The domestic trading profits of companies in 2014 was revised up by €4 billion (from €52.3 billion in NIE 2015 to €56.7 billion in NIE 2016) but the level of net factor outflows was unchanged (-€29.7 billion in both NIEs).

Anyway the conclusion is much the same.  Some companies in Ireland are earning lots of extra profit and this isn’t being distributed or attributed to foreign owners or being consumed by depreciation.  Is there a systematic reason for this?  It is hard to tell.  We could try looking in the revisions but that suggests it is a combination of factors rather than down to a single factor. 

Here are the revisions between NIE 2015 and NIE 2016 of a number of key components in the national accounts (again all in nominal terms). Click to enlarge.

The recent large revisions to the domestic trading profits of companies [item 4] can be seen at the top.  These revisions seem to be due to three factors:

• downward revision to wages and salaries paid [item 9]
• downward revision to the provision for depreciation [item 28]
• upward revision to gross value added [item 51]

The first two of these will be largely GDP-neutral as they affect the composition rather than the level of GDP.  The latter will cause GDP to rise.

For 2015, there is a €14.8 billion upward revision to the trading profits of companies before tax. Of this around €1.3 billion can be attributed to a downward revision in wages and salaries and maybe something around €4 billion to a downward revision in depreciation (the provision for depreciation in the table above is a whole economy measure rather than just for companies). These could have arisen in any sector.

The remaining part of the revision is largely due to an upward revision to output.  For 2015, this seems to correspond to an upward revision of net exports of €5.5 billion but looking at Gross Value Added by sector we see that the revision is spread across a number of sectors.  There was an upward revision of around €2 billion to the GVA from industry, from distribution, transport, software and communications and from public administration and other services.  This spread does not point to anything systematic (in the revisions at any rate).

The €6.1 billion revision to GVA corresponds to the €6.2 billion revision to GDP.  Again all these are nominal.  Revisions to the deflators mean that the upward revisions to nominal GDP in 2015 did not feed through to increases in real GDP growth. In fact real GDP growth was revised down from the infamous 26.3 per cent rate to 25.6 per cent.

For 2014, we have a €4.4 billion upward revision to profits (and no revision to net factor income).  Again there is a downward revision to wages and salaries and also a downward revision to the provision for depreciation.  Around one-third of the revision to profits could be due to an upward revision in the GVA from the industry sector but in this instance it is not accompanied by an upward revision to net exports.

So what do we conclude? The nominal growth rates of net national income have been revised up and these upward revisions are largely the result of increased profits.  Why have profits being revised up? Seems to be a number of factors (lower COE, lower depreciation, higher output) all pulling in the same direction. 

Who is earning these profits? The much smaller changes to net factor income mean the profits are staying in the economy.  Part of this will be increased Corporation Tax payments staying in the economy but a large part of it is profits accruing to Irish companies.  Are domestic companies really doing as well as these figures would suggest? Maybe.

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