Domestic Absorption

Domestic Absorption refers to the total expenditure on goods and services within an economy — comprising private consumption, government spending, and investment, while excluding net exports. It reflects overall domestic demand for both domestically produced and imported goods and is a core measure of how much an economy spends relative to what it produces. This economic-activity indicator is part of the Latin Macro Watch (LMW) dataset published by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on data.iadb.org, supporting demand and national-accounts analysis across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Coverage

Data are available for 18 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean at annual and quarterly frequency, covering 1990 to 2026. Values can be viewed in millions of domestic currency, millions of USD, and PPP-adjusted terms, with derived transformations including QoQ % and YoY %.

Sources

Figures are largely produced through LMW internal calculations based on national statistical institutes, including the Bahamas National Statistical Institute and internal calculations based on INDEC - Argentina, INE - Chile, INEGI - Mexico, and the Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Brazil), harmonized by the IDB for cross-country comparability.

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Format	CSV
Language	en
Country	Argentina Bahamas Trinidad & Tobago Belize Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia El Salvador Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Panama Uruguay Venezuela Barbados Paraguay Peru Suriname
Data notes	What does the Domestic Absorption indicator measure? It measures total expenditure on goods and services within an economy — private consumption, government spending, and investment — while excluding net exports, reflecting overall domestic demand for both domestic and imported goods. How many countries and which frequencies and period are covered? The indicator covers 18 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean at annual and quarterly frequency, spanning 1990 to 2026. What units and transformations are available? Values are available in millions of domestic currency, millions of USD, and PPP-adjusted terms, with QoQ % and YoY % transformations. Where does the data come from? Most series come from LMW internal calculations based on national statistical institutes, such as the Bahamas National Statistical Institute and internal calculations based on INDEC - Argentina, INE - Chile, INEGI - Mexico, and the Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, then harmonized by the IDB. What are typical uses of this indicator? Economists use it to gauge domestic demand pressures, study the gap between spending and output (linked to the trade balance), and compare demand dynamics across Latin American and Caribbean economies. How do I cite this indicator? Cite as: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Latin Macro Watch — "Domestic Absorption". data.iadb.org/dataset/latin-macro-watch-dataset.