Seasonal and calendar adjustment. Seasonal and working day adjustment in QNA is based on TRAMO/SEATS models. Adjustments to the data series are done using the Xxxxxxx 2.2.0 software. The set of QNA time series that are subject to seasonal and working day adjustment corresponds to the transmission programme of ESA 2010. All the time series are adjusted in current prices: the majority of them are also adjusted in chain-linked values with the reference year 2015. Each time series is adjusted individually. There is no summing-up of time series to arrive at aggregates. Seasonal and working day adjustments are done in the same model, there are no separate time series estimated for those items. The adjusted QNA time series are not benchmarked to annual values in order to provide better information on economic trends in the time series.
Seasonal and calendar adjustment. QNA produce macroeconomic estimates that describe real-world economic processes. As a result, these estimates also have inherent seasonal effects and patterns. Not all goods and services are consumed at the same level throughout the year. As consumer behaviour changes from quarter to quarter, or even from month to month, it also impacts the production activity of enterprises. And this seasonality carries over to the entire economy. However, the seasonal fluctuations in the economy can make it more difficult to analyse the trends within the economy. A decrease in the GDP from quarter to quarter does not necessarily mean a downturn in the general economic trend. A year-to-year comparison might show that the economy is still on an upward trend. The same logic applies to calendar adjustment. Not all quarters have the same amount of working days. This can be due to the length of months within quarters but also due to the amount of holidays within the same period. Generally, the fourth quarter tends to have fewer working days than the rest of the quarters, as people go on Christmas holidays and national holidays limit the number of days on which enterprises can stay open. In order to have a clearer understanding of economic trends, it is important to eliminate seasonal and calendar effects from the final estimates. There are no separate time series published with just seasonally adjusted or only calendar adjusted data. All the adjusted and published time series account for both impacts. Seasonal adjustment is applied to the time series identified in the ESA 2010 transmission programme. For seasonal and calendar adjustment, Estonia follows the ESS Guidelines on Seasonal Adjustment and aims to follow best practices. As the compilation of QNA in Estonia relies heavily on hard data, neither seasonally adjusted time series nor seasonal components are used during the compilation of QNA. Seasonal adjustment takes place only once the QNA have been finalised.
