Discrepancies between World Bank and OECD GDP data

Question

I just noticed that basic data such as historical Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at market prices in local currency differs between the World Bank (WB) and the OECD. For instance, for Canada between 2010 and 2013:

WB   : 1,662,757,000,000  1,760,011,000,000  1,819,967,000,000  1,881,200,000,000
OECD : 1.66276E+12        1.77001E+12        1.83123E+12        1.89376E+12

Or France:

WB   :          1,998,481,000,000   2,059,284,000,000   2,091,059,000,000   2,113,687,000,000
OECD :          1.99711E+12         2.05812E+12         2.08639E+12         2.11789E+12
[OECD]/[WB]-1 : N/A                 -0.06%              -0.22%              +0.20%

Sources: WB and OECD.

The differences are not huge, but for data that has presumably been sourced straight from national statistical institutions with no inflation correction, I'm still surprised. Also, the WB site mentions for its sources: "World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data files."

Figures for GDP growth (real) in France in 2013 then differ by 46bp (OECD: 0.74%, WB: 0.29%) (42bp are explained by the difference in current GDP figures, the other 4bp come from differences in GDP deflator data), which is rather material.

Is anyone familiar enough with these 2 institutions' data collection methodologies to explain where these differences come from?

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Edit: Just for fun, I have downloaded the data for France from the "official" sources (INSEE, and Eurostat which gets its data from INSEE) and here is the result:

For GDP at current (market) prices:

         2010        2011        2012        2013
INSEE    1,998.5     2,059.3     2,086.9     2,116.6 
Eurostat 1,998.5     2,059.3     2,086.9     2,116.6 
OECD     1,997.1     2,058.1     2,086.4     2,117.9 
WB       1,998.5     2,059.3     2,091.1     2,113.7 

And for real GDP growth:

         2010    2011    2012    2013
INSEE    2.0     2.1     0.2     0.7 
Eurostat 2.0     2.1     0.2     0.7 
OECD     1.88    2.09    0.21    0.75 
WB       1.97    2.08    0.33    0.29 

That's quite depressing ...

Answer 1

I have just checked the OECD's Statistics database, and I find the following GDP figures for France:

The output approach figures from the OECD match those of the INSEE and Eurostat.

The figures that you attribute to the World Bank correspond to the figures that the OECD obtains by using the income and expenditure approaches. The three approaches are explained by the OECD.

The OECD figures that I have found are in line with those from INSEE and Eurostat. You should know that national accounts are regularly revised. In such a case, international organisations, such as Eurostat, the OECD or the Worldbank update their databases, but it may take some time. And they possibly only due it at certain fixed dates and not all at the same time. Thus, figures from different sources can temporarily get out of sync.

In short, there is nothing to be depressed about. You just need to update you data. That's it. And anyway, the differences are really small.

Edit:

Nevertheless, I suspect that in your case there is yet another explanation. According to your references, you are using data from the OECD's Economic Outlook. These data are displayed as annual data. However, a glance at the metadata reveals that the underlying data are not "genuine" annual data, but come from quarterly national accounts and are aggregated to annual data: