GROSS DOMESTIC EXPENDITURE ON R&D (GERD)
Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) includes expenditure on research and development by business enterprises, higher education institutions, as well as government and private non-profit organisations.

GAZELLE
A gazelle is a high-growth enterprise that is up to 5 years old.

HIGH-GROWTH ENTERPRISE
A high-growth enterprise (growth by 20 % or more) is an enterprise with an average annualised growth greater than 20 % per year over a three-year period. Growth can be measured by the number of employees or by turnover.

A high-growth enterprise (growth by 10 % or more) is an enterprise with average annualised growth in number of employees greater than 10 % per year over a three-year period (t – 3 to t) and having at least 10 employees in the beginning of the growth (t – 3).

HOUSEHOLD BUDGET SURVEY (HBS)
The Household budget survey, (abbreviated as HBS) is a national survey focusing on households' expenditure on goods and services, giving a picture of living conditions in the European Union (EU). It is carried out by each Member State and is used to compile weightings for important macroeconomic indicators, such as consumer price indices (used as measures of inflation) and national accounts.

ANNUAL WORK UNIT (AWU)
One annual work unit (abbreviated as AWU) corresponds to the work performed by one person who is occupied on an agricultural holding on a full-time basis. Full-time means the minimum hours required by the relevant national provisions governing contracts of employment. If the national provisions do not indicate the number of hours, then 1 800 hours are taken to be the minimum annual working hours: equivalent to 225 working days of eight hours each.

GROSS WEIGHT
The gross weight is the total weight of the goods carried, including all packaging but excluding the tare weight of the transport unit.

TARE WEIGHT
The tare weight is the weight of a transport unit before any cargo is loaded.

BUILDING PERMIT
A building permit is the final authorisation to start work on a building project. It is granted by public authorities in response to an application by a principal and based on a specific building plan. There are differences in the rules and procedures according to which such permits are granted in the European Union (EU) Member States, but in none of the countries does the permit imply an obligation to start the construction; as a result, some permits might not be used by the builders. Therefore the index for building permits might overestimate future actual building projects.

POULTRY
Poultry, in the context of European Union (EU) statistics, refers to domestic birds of the species: hens and chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, quails, heasants, guineafowl, pigeons, ostriches. It excludes, however, birds raised in confinement for hunting purposes and not for meat production.

LABOUR COST
Labour cost or total labour cost is the total expenditure borne by employers for employing staff.
Total labour cost consists of: employee compensation (including wages, salaries in cash and in kind, employers’ social security contributions); vocational training costs; other expenditure such as recruitment costs, spending on working clothes and employment taxes regarded as labour costs; minus any subsidies received.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
The unemployment rate is the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the labour force.

MINIMUM WAGE
The minimum wage is the lowest wage that employers are legally obliged to pay their employees. The basic national minimum wage can be fixed at an hourly, weekly or monthly rate, and this minimum wage is enforced by law (the government), often after consultation with the social partners, or directly by national intersectoral agreement (in the European Union (EU) this is the case for Belgium and Greece).

MATERIAL DEPRIVATION
Material deprivation refers to a state of economic strain and durables, defined as the enforced inability (rather than the choice not to do so) to pay unexpected expenses, afford a one-week annual holiday away from home, a meal involving meat, chicken or fish every second day, the adequate heating of a dwelling, durable goods like a washing machine, colour television, telephone or car, being confronted with payment arrears (mortgage or rent, utility bills, hire purchase instalments or other loan payments).

SOCIAL TRANSFERS
Social transfers cover the social help given by central, state or local institutional units . They include: old-age (retirement) and survivors’ (widows' and widowers') pensions; unemployment benefits; family-related benefits; sickness and invalidity benefits; education-related benefits; housing allowances; social assistance; other benefits.

HOURS WORKED
Hours worked is the number of hours actually worked, defined as the sum of all periods spent on direct and ancillary activities to produce goods and services. The average number of hours worked corresponds to the number of hours the person normally works. This includes all hours worked including overtime, regardless of whether they were paid. It excludes travel time between home and workplace, and main meal breaks (normally taken at midday).

EMPLOYMENT RATE
The employment rate is the percentage of employed persons in relation to the comparable total population. For the overall employment rate, the comparison is made with the population of working-age; but employment rates can also be calculated for a particular age group and/or gender in a specific geographical area (for example the males of age 15-24 employed versus total in one European Union (EU) Member State).

SELF-EMPLOYED PERSON
A self-employed person is the sole or joint owner of the unincorporated enterprise (one that has not been incorporated i.e. formed into a legal corporation) in which he/she works, unless they are also in paid employment which is their main activity (in that case, they are considered to be employees).
Self-employed people also include: unpaid family workers; outworkers (who work outside the usual workplace, such as at home); workers engaged in production done entirely for their own final use or own capital formation, either individually or collectively.

WORKING-DAY ADJUSTMENT
Working-day adjustment is a part of the calendar adjustment which focusses on the changing number of working days (Monday - Friday) in the various months and their effect on statistical indicators (e.g. industrial production, production in construction) for these months.

FERTILITY
Fertility is the ability to conceive (become pregnant) and give birth to children.
The total fertility rate is defined as the mean number of children who would be born to a woman during her lifetime, if she were to spend her childbearing years conforming to the age-specific fertility rates, that have been measured in a given year.

LIFELONG LEARNING
Lifelong learning is the lifelong, voluntary and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for personal or professional reasons. The overall aim of learning is to improve knowledge, skills and competences. The intention to learn distinguishes learning activities from non-learning activities such as cultural activities or sports activities.

MANUFACTURING
Manufacturing refers to all activities in Section D of NACE Rev. 1.1, including both cottage industries (crafts) and large-scale industrial production. It should be noted that the use of heavy plant equipment or machinery is not exclusive to manufacturing.

GROSS NATIONAL INCOME (GNI)
Gross national income, abbreviated as GNI, is the sum of incomes of residents of an economy in a given period. It is equal to GDP minus primary income payable by resident units to non-resident units, plus primary income receivable from the rest of the world (from non-resident units to resident units).

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)
Gross domestic product, abbreviated as GDP, is a basic measure of the overall size of a country's economy. As an aggregate measure of production, GDP is equal to the sum of the gross value added of all resident institutional units engaged in production, plus any taxes on products and minus any subsidies on products. Gross value added is the difference between output and intermediate consumption.

LABOUR FORCE SURVEY (LFS)
A labour force survey, abbreviated as LFS, is an inquiry directed to households, designed to obtain information on the labour market and related issues through a series of personal interviews.
The European Union (EU) LFS covers all citizens living in private households and excludes those in collective households, such as boarding houses, residence halls and hospitals.

SURPLUS
Surplus means in general that the sum or balance of positive and negative amounts is positive, or that the total of positives is larger than the total of negatives.

DEFICIT
Deficit means in general that the sum or balance of positive and negative amounts is negative, or that the total of negatives is larger than the total of positives.

CENSUS
A census is a survey conducted on the full set of observation objects belonging to a given population or universe.

POPULATION DENSITY
Population density is the number of inhabitants per square kilometre. For the calculation of population density, the land-area concept (which excludes inland water bodies like lakes or rivers) should be used wherever available. However, in several countries in the European Union (EU), the total area, which includes the area of lakes and rivers, is used because it is the only concept for which data are available.

SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT
Seasonal adjustment (or the adjustment of seasonal changes) is a statistical method for removing the effects of recurring seasonal influences which have been observed in the past from an economic time series, thus showing non-seasonal trends more clearly.

R&D
(RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT)
Research and experimental development, abbreviated as R&D, refers to creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge (including knowledge of man, culture and society), and the use of this knowledge to devise new applications.

INNOVATION
Innovation is the use of new ideas, products or methods where they have not been used before.
An innovation is defined as a new or significantly improved product (good or service) introduced to the market, or the introduction within an enterprise of a new or significantly improved process.

VALIDATION
Validation is the process of testing the degree to which a model is useful for making forecasts. The sample data are often split into two segments, one being used to estimate the parameters of the model, and the other being used as a holdout set to test the forecasts made by the model. There are many variations on this process of validation.

RETAIL TRADE
Retail trade is a form of trade in which goods are mainly purchased (bought) and resold to the consumer or end-user, generally in small quantities and in the state in which they were purchased by the retailer (or following minor transformations).

TOURISM
Tourism means the activity of visitors taking a trip to a main destination outside their usual environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose, including business, leisure or other personal purpose, other than to be employed by a resident entity in the place visited.

TOURISM INTENSITY
Tourism intensity is the ratio of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments relative to the total permanent resident population of the area.

BED PLACES
The number of bed places in a tourist accommodation establishment is determined by the number of persons who can stay overnight in the beds set up in the establishment, ignoring any extra beds that may be set up upon customer request. The term bed place applies to a single bed; a double bed is counted as two bed places.

COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE
From a tourism standpoint any person who moves to another country and intends to stay there for more than one year is immediately considered to be a resident of that country, similar to its other residents. On the other hand, citizens residing abroad who return to their country of citizenship on a temporary visit are included with non-resident visitors.

MAIN COUNTRY OF DESTINATION
The main destination of a tourism trip is defined as the place visited that is central to the decision to take the trip. However, if no such place can be identified by the visitor, the main destination is defined as the place where he/she spent most of his/her time during the trip. Again, if no such place can be identified by the visitor, then the main destination is defined as the place that is the farthest from the place of usual residence.

TOURISM NIGHT
A night spent or tourist night (overnight stay) is each night a guest / tourist (resident or non-resident) actually spends (sleeps or stays) in a tourist accommodation establishment or non-rented accommodation.

STATISTICAL UNIT
The statistical unit is the entity for which the required statistics are compiled. It may be an observation unit in which information is received and statistics are compiled or an analytical unit, which statisticians create by splitting or combining observation units with the help of estimations or imputations in order to supply more detailed and/or homogeneous data than would otherwise be possible.

SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES (SMES)
Enterprises can be classified in different categories according to their size; for this purpose different criteria may be used (e.g. number of persons employed, employees, balance sheet total, investments, etc.), but the one most common in a statistical context is number of persons employed: small and medium-sized enterprises, abbreviated as SMEs: fewer than 250 persons employed

ENTERPRISE
An enterprise is an organisational unit producing goods or services which has a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making. An enterprise can carry out more than one economic activity and it can be situated at more than one location.

STATISTICAL BUSINESS REGISTER
Business registers for statistical purposes, or statistical business registers (SBR), are the main sources for business demography, as they keep track of business creations and closures as well as the structural changes in the economy by concentration or deconcentration, brought about by operations such as mergers, takeovers, break-ups, split-offs and restructuring.

MAIN INDUSTIAL GROUPINGS (MIGS)
The Main industrial groupings, abbreviated as MIGs, provide an alternative statistical breakdown of the economic activities of Manufacturing, as compared to the sectoral breakdown of the Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE). There are five MIGs: intermediate goods; capital goods; consumer durables; consumer non-durables; energy.

PRODUCTION IN CONSTRUCTION
The production in construction index is a business-cycle indicator which measures the monthly changes in production of buildings (residential and non-residential) and of civil engineering (roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, utility projects).

PRODUCTION (INDEX)
The production index is a business cycle indicator which aims to measure changes in value added at factor cost of industry and construction over a given reference period. It does this by measuring changes in the volume of output and activity at close and regular intervals, usually monthly.

BUSINESS CYCLE
A business cycle describes the expansions and contractions of economic activity in an economy over a period of time.

LOCAL UNIT
The local unit is an enterprise or part thereof (e.g. a workshop, factory, warehouse, office, mine or depot) situated in a geographically identified place. At or from this place economic activity is carried out for which - save for certain exceptions - one or more persons work (even if only part-time) for one and the same enterprise.

SHORT-TERM STATISTICS
Short-term business statistics, or simply short-term statistics , abbreviated as STS, are a set of indicators, usually with a monthly or quarterly frequency, used for closely tracking the business cycle of an economy. STS indicators are important tools for formulating and monitoring economic and monetary policies. The indicators covered by STS are for example production, turnover, hours worked, number of people employed, gross wages and producer prices. They are collected for the all major sectors of the market economy (industry, construction, trade and services).

PRIMARY PRODUCTION OF ENERGY
Primary production of energy is any extraction of energy products in a useable form from natural sources. This occurs either when natural sources are exploited (for example, in coal mines, crude oil fields, hydro power plants) or in the fabrication of biofuels. Transforming energy from one form into another, such as electricity or heat generation in thermal power plants (where primary energy sources are burned), or coke production in coke ovens, is not primary production.

PRIMARY ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Primary energy consumption measures the total energy demand of a country. It covers consumption of the energy sector itself, losses during transformation (for example, from oil or gas into electricity) and distribution of energy, and the final consumption by end users. It excludes energy carriers used for non-energy purposes (such as petroleum not used not for combustion but for producing plastics).

ENERGY INTENSITY
Energy intensity measures the energy consumption of an economy and its energy efficiency. It is the ratio between gross inland consumption of energy and gross domestic product (GDP). Gross inland consumption of energy is calculated as the sum of gross inland consumption of five energy types: coal, electricity, oil, natural gas and renewable energy sources. The GDP figures are taken at constant prices to avoid the impact of inflation. Since gross inland consumption is measured in kilograms of oil equivalent and GDP in EUR 1 000, this ratio is measured in kgoe per EUR 1 000.

GROSS INLAND CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY
Gross inland energy consumption, sometimes abbreviated as gross inland consumption, is the total energy demand of a country or region. It represents the quantity of energy necessary to satisfy inland consumption of the geographical entity under consideration. Gross inland energy consumption covers: consumption by the energy sector itself; distribution and transformation losses; final energy consumption by end users; 'statistical differences' (not already captured in the figures on primary energy consumption and final energy consumption).

GROSS INLAND ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Final energy consumption is the total energy consumed by end users, such as households, industry and agriculture. It is the energy which reaches the final consumer's door and excludes that which is used by the energy sector itself. Final energy consumption excludes energy used by the energy sector, including for deliveries, and transformation. It also excludes fuel transformed in the electrical power stations of industrial auto-producers and coke transformed into blast-furnace gas where this is not part of overall industrial consumption but of the transformation sector.

KILOGRAM(S) OF OIL EQUIVALENT
Kilogram(s) of oil equivalent, usually abbreviated as kgoe, is a normalized unit of energy. By convention it is equivalent to the approximate amount of energy that can be extracted from one kilogram of crude oil. It is a standardized unit, assigned a net calorific value of 41 868 kilojoules/kg and may be used to compare the energy from different sources. Other energy carriers can be converted into kilograms of oil equivalent (or tonnes, usually) by the use of conversion factors (see tonnes of oil equivalent for some conversions; 1 tonne = 1 000 kg).

THE ENERGY DEPENDENCY RATE
The energy dependency rate shows the proportion of energy that an economy must import. It is defined as net energy imports divided by gross inland energy consumption plus fuel supplied to international maritime bunkers, expressed as a percentage. A negative dependency rate indicates a net exporter of energy while a dependency rate in excess of 100 % indicates that energy products have been stocked.

BIODIVERSITY
Biodiversity, a contraction of biological diversity, refers to the number, variety and variability of living organisms, including mankind, within a given area. A reduction or 'loss' of biodiversity undermines not only the natural environment, but also the economic and social goals of human societies, as mankind depends on natural resources for the food, energy, raw materials, clean air and clean water making life possible. The importance of preserving biodiversity, and the possible consequences of not doing so, has made it an international issue.

RESOURCE PRODUCTIVITY
Resource productivity is a measure of the total amount of materials directly used by an economy (measured as domestic material consumption (DMC)) in relation to GDP. It provides insights into whether decoupling between the use of natural resources and economic growth is taking place. Resource productivity (GDP/DMC) is the European Union (EU) sustainable development indicator for policy evaluation.

DOMESTIC MATERIAL CONSUMPTION
Domestic material consumption, abbreviated as DMC, measures the total amount of materials directly used by an economy and is defined as the annual quantity of raw materials extracted from the domestic territory, plus all physical imports minus all physical exports.
The DMC indicator provides an assessment of the absolute level of the use of resources, and allows to distinguish consumption driven by domestic demand from consumption driven by the export market.

CARBON DIOXIDE EQUIVALENT
A carbon dioxide equivalent or CO2 equivalent, abbreviated as CO2-eq is a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases on the basis of their global-warming potential (GWP), by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide with the same global warming potential.

TONNE-KILOMETRE
A tonne-kilometre, abbreviated as tkm, is a unit of measure of freight transport which represents the transport of one tonne of goods (including packaging and tare weights of intermodal transport units) by a given transport mode (road, rail, air, sea, inland waterways, pipeline etc.) over a distance of one kilometre. Only the distance on the national territory of the reporting country is taken into account for national, international and transit transport.

PASSENGER-KILOMETRE
A passenger-kilometre, abbreviated as pkm, is the unit of measurement representing the transport of one passenger by a defined mode of transport (road, rail, air, sea, inland waterways etc.) over one kilometre.

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
Information and communication technology, abbreviated as ICT, covers all technical means used to handle information and aid communication. This includes both computer and network hardware, as well as their software.

E-BUSINESS
E-business, a contraction of 'electronic business', refers to the use of information and communication technology to support a business strategy. E-business is more than just E-commerce, and involves business processes spanning the entire value chain from purchasing and logistics management to customer service and corporate partnerships - all of them making use of electronic communications.

E-COMMERCE
E-commerce can be defined generally as the sale or purchase of goods or services, whether between businesses, households, individuals or private organizations, through electronic transactions conducted via the internet or other computer-mediated (online communication) networks.
The term covers the ordering of goods and services which are sent over computer networks, but the payment and the ultimate delivery of the goods or service may be conducted either on- or off-line.

E-GOVERNMENT
E-government refers to the use of information and communication technology in public administration procedures. One aspect of e-government, on its demand side, concerns the interaction of individuals or enterprises with public administrations through ICT.
For both individuals and enterprises this interaction can consist of: obtaining information; downloading forms; returning filled-in forms; going through an administrative procedure completely electronically.

DIGITAL LITERACY
Digital literacy refers to the skills required to achieve digital competence, the confident and critical use of information and communication technology (ICT) for work, leisure, learning and communication.
Digital literacy is underpinned by basic technical use of computers and the Internet. To measure this, the Community survey on ICT usage in households and by individuals asked if respondents had carried out six basic computer and six basic Internet activities. Those who had done 5 or 6 were classed as highly skilled, 3-4=medium; 1-2=low; those who had not carried out any of the activities, were considered as having no skills.

TRADE BALANCE
The trade balance is the difference between the value of the goods that a country (or another geographic or economic area such as the European Union (EU) or the euro area) exports and the value of the goods that it imports.
If exports exceed imports then the country has a trade surplus and the trade balance is said to be positive. If imports exceed exports, the country or area has a trade deficit and its trade balance is said to be negative.

IMPORTS
An import is a good or service brought into one country from another. Along with exports, imports form the backbone of international trade. If the value of imports entering a country is greater than the value of exports, the country is considered to have a negative balance of trade.

EXPORTS
Exports is a function of international trade whereby goods produced in one country are shipped to another country for future sale or trade. The sale of such goods adds to the producing nation's gross output.