INTRODUCTION OF THE SNA INTO THE OFFICIAL STATISTICS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES

The work on the introduction of the elements of the SNA into the official statistical practice of the former U.S.S.R. began in 1988 when estimates of the GDP using conversion keys were prepared. In 1991 the decision was made to implement the entire SNA gradually on the basis of the international standards. The methodology of compilation of the main accounts was formulated by the Statistical Committcc of the C.I.S. with the assistance of the OECD. It originally drew on the ESA with introduction of elements of the revised SNA and adaption to specific economic processes in the country. It required solution of a number of conceptual and statistical problems referring to the treatment, allocation and valuation of selected activities. The estimates of the main accounts were made for the former U.S.S.R. by sectors and by industries for 1988–90. This project has provided the basis for further work on implementation of the SNA in C.I.S. countries.     

EXPERIENCES AND PROBLEMS OF THE CIS COUNTRIES IN TRANSITION FROM THE MPS TO THE SNA

This paper reviews the transition of national accounts in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries from the Material Product System (MPS) to the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA) and discusses the major problems that still need to be solved in order to improve the quality of their national accounts. It argues that the MPS practice tended to exaggerate growth not because of different concepts, but because of methodological problems such as inadequate deflation due to poor price data and incomplete coverage of the non-observed economy as well as overpricing of new or modified products and institutional flaws that motivated data fabrication by enterprises. However, the heritages of the problems under the MPS, together with the emerging new types of institutional units, new sources of income and market-driven new services, have made the transition difficult.     

SURVEY OF COUNTRY PRACTICES IN COMPILING BALANCE-SHEET STATISTICS

From a survey of the 150 members of the United Nations it appears that only one country could at present provide the full range of balance-sheet statistics called for in the United Nations guidelines on this topic. Seven countries could compile balance sheets confined to conventional types of assets and liabilities–excluding assets like consumer durables and mineral deposits. A further 31 countries presently publish some statistics on certain balance sheet items, but as the data have generally not been collected with a view to constructing national balance sheets they tend to be deficient for such purposes both in coverage and valuation. In other countries only rather trivial kinds of balance-sheet data are available, such as certain banking statistics collected by the central monetary authority for purposes of bank regulation.
A review of sources and methods shows that for financial assets and liabilities extensive use is made of company accounts and enterprise surveys. The estate multiplier method is used in several countries for measuring household assets and net worth. As regards producers' fixed assets, countries with centrally-planned economies generally take direct surveys of assets, while in countries with market economies the perpetual inventory method is preferred.
It is noted that many of the purposes for which balance-sheet statistics are used can be adequately served without constructing a complete set of accounts. To date balance-sheet statistics have therefore tended to be developed in a piecemeal fashion with priority going to those parts of the accounts whose uses for economic analysis are most obvious. Chief among these are statistics on the financial assets and liabilities of corporate enterprises and statistics on the stock of producers' fixed assets. These two areas also predominate in countries' plans for the future development of balance-sheet statistics.     

SOCIAL ACCOUNTS AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME: THE MALAYSIAN ECONOMY IN 1970

Although the functional and institutional distributions of income are integrally connected to individual living standards and other development policy objectives, these dimensions are rarely given prominence or even accommodated within standard national accounting frameworks. This paper summarizes research on the estimation of a social accounting matrix (SAM) for Malaysia for 1970 in which the distribution of income between different factors and socio-economic groups is identified. It is the latest of a series of case studies involving some of the authors and is, perhaps, the most detailed of its kind. The study departs from the United Nations SNA guidelines at various points. The SNA basically proposes a commodity balance approach to national income accounting. In giving equal emphasis to income/outlay accounts as to the production accounts, the present study has brought together data from two major primary sources: a household expenditure survey and a production survey. Their combination poses several problems which are discussed in the paper. It leads to an integrated picture, in matrix form, of the interrelationships between income distribution and production structure in the Malaysian economy. Both the factor and household accounts in our SAM are disaggregated according to race and the geographic distinction between Peninsular and East Malaysia, with an urban/rural split within Peninsula Malaysia. The Peninsula labor force is further disaggregated by education level, while its households are then subdivided according to the employment status of main income earners. Arguments for and against these choices are presented. Some other aspects of the study can be noted. First, the distinction drawn between East and Peninsular Malaysia is desirable not only because of the inherent interest of the regions but also because of large differences in data availability and hence in estimation methods. Secondly, to complete our SAM it was necessary to estimate inter-household transfers, being the institutional analogue of inter-industry commodity flow. And finally an attempt has been made to impute the labor component of unincorporated business income. These, then, are the major problems which had to be overcome in our attempt to quantify the generation, distribution, and redistribution of income within Malaysia in a SAM framework.     

PRICES AND PRICE ANALYSIS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

The paper discusses the role of prices in the framework of the new System of National Accounts (SNA) in terms of three major uses: (1) deflation, (2) price indicators, and (3) price analysis. Following a brief review of the price and quantity measures required by the new SNA with its emphasis on deflation of commodity flows and input-output accounts, in addition to the more conventional deflation of final demand categories, the paper discusses some of the conceptual, methodological and data problems involved in implementing the various uses of prices in the new SNA. Implementing the use of prices as deflators depends, in part, on the concept of output selected (national versus domestic; gross versus net), and which of six concepts of valuation, ranging from purchasers'value to true factor cost, is used. Some of the difficulties in deflating nonmarket flows (e.g., interplant transfers) and industry value added, based on the double deflation method, are discussed. In concept price deflators, which have shifting weights, cannot be used as price indicators, which should have fixed weights. In practice, this is often disregarded and the deflators are used as price indicators. The paper support the SNA recommendation for the development of price indexes with fixed weights to be used as price indicators, in addition to the implicit price deflators. Research in the United States indicates that differences in weights can result in different price measures for various subperiods, components of demand and sector output. Periodic revisions in weights to provide more current fixed weights for price and quantity indexes in each subperiod may minimize the problem but it introduces a new problem—lack of comparability with the constant price tables in the SNA which have fixed weights for the entire period. The new SNA provides a comprehensive and integrated framework for price analysis including the analysis of the structure of aggregate price changes, the industrial origin of final demand prices, and the impact of price change in one sector of the economy on the rest of the economy. Some major gaps which need to be overcome in order to implement the use of the new SNA for price analysis include the development of industry capital stock estimates, separate estimates of proprietors’income, reconciliation of value added and distribution share estimates, and the development of a wide variety of information to supplement the conventional input-output tables in the SNA. Implementing the various objectives of price measures within the framework of the accounts will require a number of improvements in existing price measures and expanding the scope of coverage. “List” prices should be superseded by “transactions” prices and better techniques and data need to be developed to provide for quality adjustment of prices. Coverage will need to be expanded to include services, freight rates, trade margins, government expenditures, and also fill in gaps for many manufactured products. Finally, where possible, use of unit values as price indexes or deflators, e.g., imports and exports, should be replaced by direct price measures.     

THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

After an introduction setting out the general state of work on the national accounts in the Middle East the author considers the principal uses of national accounts statistics in less developed countries. The first group of uses discussed is in connexion with the measurement of growth and the making of international comparisons. The author is of the opinion that in many cases the primary statistical series are so weak that the fact they they are combined together into a series called national income or gross domestic product lends to them a significance which they do not really possess. The real problem is to improve the quality of the primary series. A second use of national accounts statistics is in connexion with fiscal and budgetary policy. In the statistically advanced countries this is one of the most important uses but in the less developed countries budgetary policy has not yet reached a level of sophistication which would call for the use of national accounts data. Moreover, the time factor involved in assembling accurate national accounts estimates militates against their effective use for short term forecasting. The author considers that the most important use for national accounts statistics is to provide a framework for development planning. The United Nations system is not altogether appropriate for this purpose. It grew up primarily as a system for recording income flows but in development planning one is concerned equally with commodity flows with a great deal of attention being focussed upon intermediate products. The proposals of the working group of African Statisticians for an adaptation of the S.N.A. to African countries represents a most important advance in this respect. In the final section of the paper the author advocates a broader definition of capital formation to include developmental expenditure which is not properly defined as fixed capital formation. Education expenditure is cited as an example. It is suggested that in the national accounts it would be desirable to operate with gross concepts. However, the growth of the capital stock is obviously important in less developed countries and it is suggested that statistical techniques be devised to measure it directly wherever possible. Finally, attention is drawn to the ambiguities and weaknesses in the concept of residence as used at present in the S.N.A.     

AN EXAMINATION OF THE FEASIBILITY OF USING MONETARY DATA FOR NATIONAL INCOME ESTIMATES

In a number of underdeveloped countries today, adequate statistics for estimating national output by traditional national accounting methods are unavailable or unreliable. However, many of these same countries do publish data on monetary variables at an early stage in their development. These data can now be used to estimate national income.
In this study the money supply was defined to include all currency in circulation, private deposits subject to check at all banks and postal systems, all government deposits, and unused overdrafts less float. The national accounts data were taken from United Nations sources and data supplied by various foreign statistical offices. To make the accounts more comparable in terms of coverage and to limit reported income to the monetized sector of the economy, non-monetary imputations were deleted.
The monetary and national accounts data were combined in a multiple, stepwise regression. National income was used as the dependent variable and money supply and other data were used as the independent variables. The final estimating equations explained about 96 per cent of the variation in income between countries. Other tests were conducted using the currency ratio, transactions velocity, population, and per capita consumption. However, these variables did not augment the explanatory power of the regression equations.
When the equations were used to estimate national income for twenty-two under-developed countries, the derived estimates showed a high degree of concordance with reported income where it existed for comparative purposes. The results indicate that monetary data can be used to estimate national income for underdeveloped countries with a relatively high degree of accuracy, between countries, and from year to year within a country.     

《中国国民经济核算体系(2002)》刍议

经过 10年的发展 ,中国国民经济核算体系研究与应用方面取得了巨大成就。即将颁布实施的《中国国民经济核算体系 (2 0 0 2 )》相对于 1992年的《中国国民经济核算体系实施方案》无论是在基本框架、账户体系、主要指标、统计分类等方面 ,还是在理论上的系统性、应用上的可操作性、资料的使用价值以及国际可比性等方面都得到了进一步完善和发展。本文主要讨论《中国国民经济核算体系 (2 0 0 2 )》修订的主要内容及其实施的重要作用。     

THE SOCIAL ACCOUNTS FROM A CONSUMER'S POINT OF VIEW

After a short introduction, the first part of this paper (section 3 through 9) provides an outline of the revisions proposed to the System of National Accounts (SNA) of the United Nations which are now under discussion. These proposals were considered by an expert group at the end of 1964 and were accepted by the Statistical Commission of the United Nations in 1965 as the basis for further work on the extension and revision of the SNA. The aim of the revision is to provide a fully integrated system of accounts and balance sheets in which input-output, flows-of-funds and sector balance sheets are incorporated in a generalised accounting framework. Whereas the real side of the economy has been studied analytically in many countries (input-output analysis, demand analysis and so on) much less experience is available on modelling the financial side of the economy, apart from econometric work on saving behaviour, which is fairly widespread. Accordingly, the second part of the paper (sections 10 through 14) contains a discussion of financial model-building in which a number of possibilities are explored. The final topic discussed (section 15) is demographic accounting, by which is meant a framework for recording and analysing human, as opposed to economic, flows and stocks. The development of such a system arose out of the emphasis placed by the expert group on the integration of demographic and economic information.     

THE PRESENT STATE OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN LATIN AMERICA

This document attempts to give an overall review of the present situation of national accounts in Latin America, and deals essentially with the statistical basis and procedures used in their preparation. The purpose of these comments is to place the main problems common to all countries in order of priority and, in view of the need to advance and in the face of the task of establishing the present SNA, to discuss briefly the main lines which future work might follow. The stage of development so far reached by national accounts in Latin America is unsatisfactory if compared with the former system recommended by the United Nations two decades ago, and their recent evolution indicates that the rate of progress has fallen behind the advances made in the theoretical field in this connexion, and in relation to the increasing requirements of macroeconomic information for economic planning and policy. This whole picture becomes more meaningful if the objectives, structure and content of the present SNA, that has already been in force for five years, are compared with the present state of national accounts estimates in the region, which reveals the long road that lies ahead and the magnitude of the effort required if the present situation is to show a change for the better. Clearly, little progress can be made unless the basic statistics are expanded in scope and improved. This is the crux of the problem, towards which the greatest efforts and resources should primarily be channeled. It is necessary to adopt a critical approach and concerted action with respect to four aspects which characterize the national statistical systems in Latin America:

• (a) organizational problems and the shortage of human and financial resources;
• (b) the lack of co-ordinated programmes of basic statistics;
• (c) the limited use of efficient methods of collecting data; and
• (d) the insufficient recourse to administrative records.

     

POSSIBILITIES AND PROBLEMS OF RECONCILIATION OF THE SNA AND THE MPS

This paper reviews the underlying concepts and definitions of SNA and MPS in order to identify those areas where the differences in the content or classifications of the corresponding aggregates of these systems of national accounting can be eliminated or reduced in the course of the present or the future work on the revision of both SNA and MPS. This will bring the systems nearer to each other and improve international comparability of national income data. In cases where such a reconciliation is not feasible, the introduction of certain modifications or clarifications in the selected sections of SNA and/or MPS will be a useful step.
Pursuing this objective, the paper introduces the following classification of the intersystem differences:
—differences in the fundamental concepts and definitions;
—differences caused by the peculiarities in the
—institutional set up;
—so called "incidental" differences.
On examining the above classification the paper comes to the conclusion that each group requires its own approach. The second conclusion is that possibilities for reducing intersystem differences are more promising in the case of the third group.
The paper uses the simplified MPS matrix in order to demonstrate the usefulness of certain modifications in the MPS classifications. These modifications do not imply any deviations from the fundamental concepts and yet they could facilitate international comparability.
The paper also discusses certain modifications (or clarifications) concerning some aggregates which could be useful in the context of international comparisons.     

REPORT OF A CONFERENCE ON THE PROPOSALS FOR REVISION OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS, HELD BY THE CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN INCOME AND WEALTH

This report summarizes the proceedings of a series of meetings called by the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth of the National Bureau of Economic Research in June of 1966. The major conclusions of the conference, as transmitted to the Statistical Office of the United Nations, were as follows: (1) The aim of integrating the various parts of the system of national accounts, including input-output and financial transactions, is to be welcomed. (2) The more recently developed parts of the system need considerably more work to reach the same level of clarity and usefulness which the national income and product accounts have acquired. (3) Some simplification of the proposed basic system should be considered, involving the identification of a minimum of information that should and could be provided by all countries. (4) In line with the conference's overriding interest in national accounts as an instrument for economic analysis and a means of more informed policy formation, the proposed system needs considerable strengthening in the field of income distribution.     

MEASURING OUTPUT FROM THE PUBLIC SECTOR: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE ATKINSON REVIEW

In 1993 a new page was turned in national accounting. The United Nations Standards of National Accounting recommended a new standard for the measurement of output from the public sector. Implementation has recently begun in many countries, in Europe based on a European Union directive. In the U.K. the Atkinson Review in 2005 came up with a series of recommendations. This article examines its recommendations concerning the definition and valuation of government outputs. For the non‐market sector a market analog is recommended by the Review. However, several of its recommendations are inconsistent with that, championing social value as a basis for definitions and measurement. If taken seriously it will lead to arbitrary and politically controversial factors inserted into national accounts. The article highlights the norm that GDP is a measure of production, and advocates adhering to the market analog and following well recognized practices of national accounting.     

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM IN HUNGARY

This paper presents the characteristics of the National Accounting System of Hungary and outlines its development in the last decades and the insufficiencies still existing. Hungary has joined with great interest in the work performed within the frame of the United Nations Statistical Commission concerning the development of the Systems of National Accounts, being interested in applying—as far as possible—the results of the revision of the SNA and MPS in its national practice. The paper first presents a conceptual matrix containing all the major items in the MPS system in order to explain the contents of the items and the interdependencies among them. In this connection a brief account is given of the major differences between the SNA and MPS. The following part of the paper presents the National Accounting System introduced in Hungary in 1968. It is put also within the framework of a matrix, which supplies the items of both the SNA and MPS by means of simple aggregation as well as satisfying the national requirements, so that it is possible to compare the structure and development of the Hungarian economy with those of any other countries. The major differences between the Hungarian system and the current MPS and the revised SNA are then presented.     

THE TREATMENT OF PENSIONS AND INSURANCE IN NATIONAL ACCOUNTS*

In the course of the nearly two decades since the revised SNA was developed, the role of pensions and insurance in the developed western economies has been significantly altered. The United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA) is not fully consistent in its treatment of pension and insurance transactions. This paper examines whether, in view of the changed institutional context, a modification of the SNA treatment of this complex of flows would be desirable. It investigates the impact on household income and saving of adopting a somewhat more consistent transactor/transaction approach for all pension and insurance transactions. Four main topics are covered: (1) social security, (2) private pensions, (3) life insurance, and (4) casualty insurance. Each is considered in terms of the treatment of contributions, the treatment of benefits, and the handling of reserves and the income generated by them. The same sorts of problem arise in all four cases.     

DOES CONSUMPTION ENTAIL INCOME? IMPLICATIONS OF THE DUAL CLASSIFICATION OF CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE FOR THE INCOME SIDE OF THE HOUSEHOLD SECTOR IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS*

In the future revision of the SNA the dual classification of flows in the national accounts will gain some importance with respect to consumption expenditures. It is likely that outlays of different institutions for consumption are added to form a new aggregate “individual consumption.” The question is whether this development requires an adjustment on the income side of the household accounts. In order to find an answer it is first necessary to scrutinize the concept of disposable income in its standard form, and in its different variations. The result is a distinction between “disposable income in the strict sense” and “income after distribution,” where the standard definition actually realizes the latter concept. It is then shown that the dual structure of the accounts does not permit the adding of individual consumption to saving of households so that the concept of enlarged income defeats its purpose.     

AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE CURRENT TREATMENT OF INTEREST AS TRANSFER IN THE UNITED NATIONS AND CANADIAN SYSTEMS OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

The United Nations (SNA) and the Canadian (CSNA) Systems of National Accounts treat interest as a factor return to capital. The difficulties arising from the use of this concept cast doubt upon the basic premise. For example if the usual method of measuring value added by the summation of primary inputs is applied to industries mainly engaged in the lending of money, the results show negative production. This has led to the necessity of imputing bank interest in order to avoid negative income originating in the banking industry. Arguments are being put forward to extend this practice to certain other financial non-bank areas as well to offset the negative product emerging with increasing frequency as a result of higher levels of interest transactions.
The proposed alternative is based on the contention that interest paid and received for the borrowing and lending of money should be treated in the same manner as the purchase and sale of other services. For the production accounts, for example, this would mean that interest paid by business would be treated as an intermediate expense of the paying industry and as revenue of the receiving industry. The adoption of this approach would therefore eliminate the need for the imputation of banking services and clear up the ambiguities encountered in treating interest on the public and consumer debt, issues which are also not unrelated to the present treatment of interest.     

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS AND BALANCE SHEETS: ISSUES FOR THE REVISION OF SNA

This paper is an abridged version of a report with the same title originally written for the United Nations Statistical Office, as a part of the ongoing review of the System of National Accounts. Its purpose is to identify the issues in the financial statistics area that need to be considered in the course of the review. Particular attention is paid to problems of harmonization of SNA with related standards of the International Monetary Fund. The 1968 SNA provided a place in the framework for financial accounts and balance sheets, but did not develop them in any detail. In the 19 years since the revised SNA was published, policy and analytic interest in financial questions has greatly increased, and much work has been done on conceptual development and statistical compilation of financial statistics, both within and outside of the SNA framework. It is now apparent that some of the early decisions taken when financial considerations were not the focus of attention need reconsideration, some of the makeshift solutions that have grown up over time are no longer adequate, and some issues that have not been dealt with at all need to be addressed. This paper is not intended to propose solutions, but rather to reflect questions that have been raised, and to present alternatives that have been proposed.     

THE IMPACT OF DROUGHT ON THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS FOR LIVESTOCK IN SAHELIAN COUNTRIES

The evaluation of livestock production in the United Nations System of National Accounts implies a measure which is inconsistent with the general principle evaluation of production in this system.
This paper deals with a critical appraisal of the methods used by the SNA and two sahelian countries in livestock accounting.
Finally, estimations of NIGER'S GDP over the period 1983 to 1985 are carried out, using the four livestock production assessments presented. Differences in GDP's evaluations are large, reaching 17 percent in 1984 and 7 percent in 1985 in terms of rate of growth.     

THE ESTIMATION OF POVERTY DYNAMICS USING DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME

If surveys offer two different measurements of household income, one can use them simultaneously to identify the potential effects of measurement error on the observed-income mobility of the poor. In this paper we investigate transition tables between subsequent income states. Latent Markov models are used to model incorrect classifications of income states. Misclassifications are interpreted as measurement error or spurious changes that are not consistent with a simple transition table model. The empirical results for the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) show that the observed transition tables overestimate the mobility between poverty states.