Economic Conditions

Table of contents
  1. Overview
  2. Properties
  3. Purpose in Financial Analysis
    1. 1 — Reference Year on a Financial Transaction
    2. 2 — Conversion Year in the Financial Page
  4. Managing Economic Conditions
    1. Navigating to the Economic Conditions tab
    2. Adding a New Economic Condition
    3. Editing an Economic Condition
    4. Deleting an Economic Condition
  5. Recommended Practices
  6. Permissions Summary

Overview

Economic Conditions in EORSA-DB represent the economic context of a given calendar year. They serve as reference points for normalising financial transaction values so that costs recorded in different years can be compared on a common economic basis (adjusting for inflation or deflation).

Managing Economic Conditions requires the AccessProgrammaticData permission.

Properties

Property Type Description
Name string (required) Full descriptive name (e.g., 2024 Economic Conditions, Year 2020 Reference).
Short Name string (required) Abbreviated identifier used in dropdowns (e.g., EC2024, 2020).
Year integer (required) The calendar year this economic condition represents (e.g., 2024).
Evolution double (%) Percentage change in economic conditions relative to the previous year. A positive value indicates inflation (e.g., 3.5 means 3.5% inflation); a negative value indicates deflation.
Definition text Free-text description of the economic context, data source, and methodology used to derive the evolution value.
Data Source string Reference to the source of the economic data (e.g., Eurostat, World Bank, ESA Programme Office).
Attachments file list Attached supporting documents.
Illustrative Images image list Supporting charts or graphs illustrating the economic trend.

Purpose in Financial Analysis

Economic Conditions are used in two complementary ways within EORSA-DB:

1 — Reference Year on a Financial Transaction

Each Financial Transaction can optionally reference an Economic Condition via its Reference Economic Condition field. This documents the economic year in which the transaction value was originally expressed.

For example:

  • A contract worth €500 M recorded in 2018 prices is linked to the EC2018 Economic Condition.
  • When comparing this to a 2024 budget, the application can apply the chain of Evolution factors to convert both to the same reference year.

2 — Conversion Year in the Financial Page

The Select conversion year dropdown in the Financial application toolbar selects an Economic Condition to use as the normalisation target. All displayed financial values are then adjusted to that year’s economic context using the chain of Evolution values.

  • Select a conversion year to display real (inflation-adjusted) values.
  • Leave the field empty to display nominal values as originally recorded.

See Financial Application for details on how to use this dropdown.

Managing Economic Conditions

  1. Click Administration in the top navigation bar.
  2. On the Administration page, click the Economic Conditions tab.

The tab displays a grid of all defined economic conditions.

Screenshot of the Administration page with the Economic Conditions tab selected, showing the list of economic conditions with Year, Evolution, and Name columns

Adding a New Economic Condition

  1. In the Economic Conditions tab, click the + button (or Add button in the grid toolbar).
  2. Fill in the fields (see Properties above).
  3. Click Save.

Screenshot of the Add Economic Condition side panel showing the Name, Short Name, Year, Evolution (%), and Definition fields

Editing an Economic Condition

  1. In the grid, click the row of the economic condition to open its edit panel.
  2. Modify the fields.
  3. Click Save.

Deleting an Economic Condition

  1. In the grid, click the row of the economic condition.
  2. Use the Delete action.

Deleting an Economic Condition that is referenced by existing Financial Transactions will leave those transactions without a reference condition. The transactions themselves are not deleted, but their Reference Economic Condition link will be empty.

  • Create one Economic Condition record per calendar year.
  • Use reliable, official sources for the Evolution value (e.g., Eurostat HICP for Euro-denominated programmes).
  • Document the source and methodology clearly in the Definition and Data Source fields so that analysts can reproduce or audit the normalisation.
  • A consistent naming convention such as EC<YEAR> (e.g., EC2020, EC2021, …) makes the conditions easy to identify in the Financial page dropdown.

Permissions Summary

Action Required Permission
View Economic Conditions AccessProgrammaticData
Add / Edit / Delete Economic Conditions AccessProgrammaticData