Three stages are necessary when assessing consumption expenditure for a given year:

1. From the perspective of household behaviour, a "proposal" is produced at a very detailed level of the classification by combining a variety of sources: periodic household surveys (e.g. Family budget) or outlook surveys, branch of activity surveys, statistics from professional syndicates, foreign trade data, use of household or retailer panels.

This first synthesis leads :

- in most cases, to adopt a change in value index, used to obtain consumption at its current value. This is then deflated by the annual average trend in the consumer price index (CPI) to give consumption evaluated at the previous year's prices;

- in other cases, to adopt a change in volume index, which when applied to consumption at the value of the previous year gives consumption evaluated at the previous year's prices. With this second index, the average annual evolution of consumer prices is applied to obtain consumption at its current value.

2. These detailed estimates are then faced a more aggregated level with other evaluations:

- trade accounts, prepared with a view to distribution, for the "marketable consumption" field;

- "resource-use balances" by product (where consumption constitutes a use), where the production view predominates.

Trade-offs are required which may affect household consumption. The evaluation of consumption usually stops at the end of this stage.

3. In a last phase, consumption balanced according to products and the "final household consumption expenditure" aggregate are compared with the major balances of the "integrated economic accounts" and the aggregates of the household accounts. This comparison can also lead to trade-offs, which modify the consumption evaluation.

Expenditure that can be individualised by general governments (social transfers in kind) derives from accounts that are drawn up mainly by the Direction des Finances Publiques (Tax Department) and checked by INSEE. Individualisable expenditure by non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH) is evaluated in the context of a synthesis of the accounts of this institutional sector.