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Adjust a monetary value using a GDP deflator

Source: R/adjust_real.R
adjust_real.Rd

Converts an amount between two years using GDP deflator data sourced from the World Bank Development Indicators (indicator: NY.GDP.DEFL.ZS). Suitable for adjusting GDP figures, government expenditure, and other macroeconomic aggregates. For adjusting personal or consumer values (wages, prices of goods), use adjust_inflation which uses CPI instead.

Usage

adjust_real(amount, from_year, currency, to_year = NULL, round = 2)

Arguments

amount

Numeric (scalar or vector). The original monetary amount(s).

from_year

Integer. The year the amount is from.

currency

Character. A currency code or country name. Accepted codes: "GBP", "AUD", "USD", "EUR", "CAD", "JPY", "CNY", "CHF", "NZD", "INR", "KRW", "BRL", "NOK". Country names are also accepted, e.g. "Australia", "United States", "Japan", "Switzerland" (case-insensitive).

to_year

Integer. The target year to adjust to. Defaults to the latest available year in the deflator series.

round

Integer or NULL. Number of decimal places to round to (default 2). Use NULL for full precision.

Value

A numeric value (or vector) representing the deflator-adjusted amount.

Details

The GDP deflator measures price changes across all goods and services produced in an economy, unlike CPI which tracks a fixed consumer basket. Key differences from CPI:

  • Covers all domestic production, not just consumer goods

  • Excludes imported goods (CPI includes them)

  • Updates its basket automatically (CPI uses a fixed basket)

  • Published annually/quarterly (CPI is monthly)

Use the GDP deflator when comparing macroeconomic aggregates (GDP, government spending, investment) across time. Use adjust_inflation for personal or consumer values.

See also

Other GDP deflator adjustment: historical_real()

Examples

# Adjust UK GDP from 1990 to today using GDP deflator
adjust_real(500000, 1990, "GBP")
#> [1] 1214416

# Compare US government spending in 2000 vs 2020 terms
adjust_real(1000000, 2000, "USD", to_year = 2020)
#> [1] 1428890