A quarterly post-Second World War real GDP series for New Zealand

There are no official quarterly real GDP estimates for New Zealand, for the period prior to 1977. We report the development of a seasonally-adjusted series for a period of more than 60 years from mid-1947, and evaluate statistical properties. The series were developed by linking quarterly observations from two recent official series to temporally disaggregated observations for an earlier time period. Annual real GDP series are disaggregated, using the information from two quarterly diffusion indexes, developed by Haywood and Campbell (1976). Three static econometric models with different disturbance term assumptions and one dynamic model are evaluated. Our preferred quarterly series is based on results generated from the Chow and Lin (1971) model. We assess movements in the preferred static model and dynamic model series against qualitative findings from New Zealand's post-Second World War economic history.