The UK Account summarises the value of household production in the United Kingdom in the year 2000. Details of the calculation of the value of output for each individual project can be found in the respective project pages. A variety of data sources have been used to estimate the volume of output (number of journeys provided, number of meals produced etc.) and value them using the price of an equivalent good or service provided by the market. The value of inputs of purchased goods and services is then subtracted.

An adjustment must be made to some of the output estimates for services provided by the households themselves. This is necessary when these are included in the price used to value the output, but have already been valued in another project. For example, the price of a meal in a restaurant includes the cost of the premises, and any transport required for food shopping. The household production of these has been valued in the housing and transport projects respectively. A proportion of total housing and transport output must therefore be deducted from the nutrition output, to avoid double counting.

Removing the inputs of purchased goods and services and making the adjustment for inputs of household production gives the gross value added by households. As a final step, the contribution of household capital, measured by the consumption of fixed capital of household goods such as washing machines, cars, dishwashers etc., is deducted. This gives the net value added by households in the household production process.

The value added by households (gross) – or gross household product – can be compared with gross domestic product (GDP) only if an adjustment is made to the latter to remove the imputed rent of owner-occupiers. This is to avoid counting this both explicitly in GDP and implicitly in the Housing element of the HHSA, and thereby double-counting. GDP at market prices in the year 2000, adjusted in this way, was approximately £892,182 million.

For further details see Chapter 12 of the HHSA Methodology

All the estimates which are shown in the UK Account should be interpreted with caution, bearing in mind their sensitivity to some of the assumptions made.