Definition: Consumer durables

Category: European System of Accounts (ESA)

Durable goods used by households repeatedly over periods of time of more than one year for final consumption. They are included in the balance sheets as memorandum items. They are excluded from the main balance sheet because they are recorded as uses in the households sector's use of income account as being consumed in the period of account, and not gradually used up (ESA 2010). 

Durable goods acquired by households for final consumption (i.e. those that are not used by households as stores of value or by unincorporated enterprises owned by households for purposes of production) (Annex 7.1: Definition of each asset category).

Consumer durables are durable goods used by households repeatedly over periods of time of more than one year for final consumption. They are included in the balance sheets only as memorandum items. Their inclusion as a component of the balance sheet would be appropriate if the system postulated that the durables were gradually used up in production processes whose outputs consist of services. But consumer durables are not treated in this way (§ 7.63) (ESA 1995). http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=KS-02-13-269&mode=view European Union, Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union, Official Journal of the European Union No L 174, 26.06.2013, p. 1 - 727
Eurostat, "European System of Accounts - ESA 1995", Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 1996