A FRAMEWORK FOR REGIONAL ACCOUNTS: AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has recently published a set of experimental estimates of gross State product at factor cost and its income components for the States of Australia (1): The regular compilation and publication of the estimates is also commencing. In compiling the estimates, certain conceptual issues were confronted. Others were recognized but have not required final resolution as yet because they are beyond the scope of the estimates presently compiled.
This paper considers the development of a framework for regional accounts for countries with regional characteristics broadly similar to those of the Australian States by starting with the SNA framework that applies at the national Ievel. The difficulties that arise are highlighted and alternative approaches for dealing with specific issues discussed. These alternative approaches can have a significant impact on measured State relativities and performance over time. In some instances the choice between approaches may be narrowed because of practical considerations in the same way that the SNA is a conceptual framework that nevertheless has to take account of practicalities. The issues largely involve consideration as to whether or not to regard certain activities as extra-territorial in nature. If an extra-territorial concept is not adopted choices must be made on how to allocate data items related to such activities by State.     

CONCEPTUAL INCONGRUITY IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

This paper is presented as a general contribution to discussions underway with respect to the revision of the SNA. The author argues that underlying premises in the current (1968) version of the SNA tend to favour quantitative aspects of production and that the treatment of certain financial items such as interest and valuation of inventory change have been compromised in regard to their effects on production.
The need for alternative approaches to these components in the subaccounts of the SNA is emphasized, the rationale involved is explained and modifications to some of the subaccounts are proposed. The alternative approaches affect the boundaries of production and it is argued that the new boundaries would provide a more realistic representation of current values of gross domestic product. It is also noted that the modified production accounts are more compatible with the balance sheet subaccounts.
The author shows that production subaccounts on input-output and productivity are based on the need for quantitative measures in analysing growth in the volume of goods and services produced and of productivity to determine efficiency of factor utilization. It is argued that the existing conceptual structure of these two subaccounts meet these needs and should be retained in their present form.     

MISUSE AND USE OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS AS A WELFARE INDICATOR: SELECTED ANALYTICAL AND MEASUREMENT ISSUES

Few economic relationships have been as scrutinized as that between SNA measures of national product, investment and consumption, and welfare. The present paper contrasts SNA economic production and welfare to total production and welfare within the Walrasian framework of usefulness and costliness. An evaluation of deductions and additions to the SNA made by Nordhaus-Tobin, Zolotas, Richard and Nancy Ruggles, Kendrick, Eisner and Jorgenson-Fraumeni, in their research on extended product and income accounts and improved indicators of welfare reveals numerous unresolved analytical and measurement issues; and reaffirms the usefulness of the SNA as a fundamental, initial, welfare indicator.     

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.     

关于金融统计学本科教学方法的思考

随着金融创新的不断加深,金融学与数学、尤其是统计学的结合越来越紧密,金融模型日趋复杂。具备良好的统计学理论基础和应用技能成为金融研究和实务的必备条件。分析了金融统计学在金融工程专业本科教学中存在的问题,提出改进教学方法的途径。     

The empirical analysis of the determinants for environmental technological change: A research agenda

Technological change is usually considered a necessary albeit not sufficient condition for a transition to sustainability. However, the empirical analysis of the determinants to environmental technological change has not received too much attention in the environmental/ecological economics literature and many open questions remain in this context. Based on a careful review of the literature, this paper argues that further analysis should address several issues at different levels: i.e., regarding the conceptual framework, the thematic scope of the studies, some methodological issues and other aspects related to the environmental policy variable. First, an integrated conceptual framework which takes into account the interplay between relevant variables influencing environmental technological change (i.e., factors internal and external to the firm and characteristics of the environmental technologies) and all the stages of this process, with a greater emphasis on the invention stage, should be developed. Other aspects should then be tackled, including a focus on several themes (i.e., a greater attention to cross-sectoral technologies, the barriers to different types of environmental technologies, the international dimension of environmental technological change and environmental technological change in small and medium size enterprises), methodological issues (combination of case studies and econometric modelling) and several issues related to the environmental policy variable.     

Some reflections on the 1968–93 SNA revision

The 1968 System of National Accounts (SNA 68) represented an important milestone in national accounting. In providing a more detailed structuring of the economy and integrating a correspondingly more relevant system of basic, producer and purchasers' prices by commodities and industry sectors, it helped lay to rest the early schism that developed between Keynes and Tinbergen over the question of the legitimacy of empirical economic modeling. The system was readily embraced by the advanced countries of Western Europe because it responded directly to the contemporary political imperatives of development planning and the need for economic forecasting models. But a large part of the non-Western "free world" encountered almost insurmountable difficulties in the full implementation of the system and became quickly bogged down in the quagmire of inter-industry statistics and valuation problems. Nancy and Richard Ruggles pressed for a revision providing workable solutions that would make the system more adaptable to the policy needs and statistical capacities of the majority of UN member countries. What actually happened took very much longer to reach fruition than was ever intended. The SNA 93 now represents the "gold standard" for national accounts, covering every aspect of economic activity. It is a masterpiece of conceptual coherence. Its encyclopedic character allows analysts and practitioners alike to dip into its voluminous pages for reasoned answers to why certain valuation questions and estimation procedures should be dealt with in a particular way. But SNA 93 remains a formidable document and it is not the operational data friendly framework that the Ruggles initially had envisaged.     

制度金融理论的新发展:文献述评

制度金融理论近年来引起人们的广泛关注,其研究框架正日趋成形,本文试图对此领域的若干新进展进行初步梳理。本文发现,在Merton等提出的"功能与结构金融学"框架中,制度金融理论的独特面目渐趋清晰。Stiglitz等通过将一些关键制度因素"内生化"于既有的货币经济分析框架,为长期行进于宏观路径的货币经济学找回了微观(制度)基础,不过,他们并未触及货币经济运行背后的金融权利内涵。所幸Soto发现并强调了货币金融所有权的制度涵义。Borland和Yang则将分工、货币与信贷以及法律、政府等多种因素引入一般均衡模型,揭示了货币的性质以及货币制度演进的深层涵义;而在金融中介理论初步接纳了金融企业家因素之后,被主流经济学长期搁置的金融机构以及金融企业家的演进与结构也正式进入制度金融理论的核心框架。     

Municipal Finance in Poland,the Slovak Republic,the Czech Republic and Hungary: Institutional Framework and Recent Development

The recent process of political and economic transition in eastern European countries has not only contributed to the decentralisation of political structure but also significantly enhanced the fiscal autonomy of municipalities in these countries. In this context many similar types of public activities have recently been assigned to local governments, and some taxes were also declared to be local taxes. To be sure, this type of fiscal decentralisation has caused some additional problems, particularly for safeguarding the quality of publicly provided goods and services and for co-ordinating intergovernmental fiscal transfers between the central and local governments. For instance, some criticise that many small-sized municipalities in the transition economies have suffered from financial bottlenecks and have not been able to receive sufficient financial support from the central government. However, such a fiscal devolution trend appears to continue. This study primarily deals with issues surrounding the impact of national fiscal policy and the regulatory framework on local governments' expenditure behaviour and their ability to mobilise necessary revenues under the particular consideration of the institutional and administrative co-operation with the central government and of the less well-developed financial market in Poland, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Hungary.     

IMPLEMENTING THE REVISED SNA: RECOMMENDATIONS ON PRICE AND VOLUME MEASURES

The 1993 SNA recommends chain volume indices over traditional fixed base indices as the principal measure of year-to-year volume movements in economic aggregates. Recognising, however, that "additive consistency" is important to many users, the SNA recommends that countries continue to compile traditional constant price data alongside the chain indices. In addition, the new international guidelines suggest a supply-use table framework for deriving indices. This paper considers how these demands can be met in practice. Particular attention is paid to deriving chain indices for industry value added within the same framework as that used for final demand components.     

公司治理问题分类研究

目前公司治理问题大致分为三大类：现在已经达成共识而尚未解决的问题、目前还没有认识清楚的问题和存在争议的问题。正确认识和区分这些问题，对于我们构建和完善公司治理结构、提高财务管理水平和管理效率是非常有益的，也是十分必要的。     

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.     

Challenges for International Economic Policy Coordination in EMU: Institutional Setting, Financial Market Reactions and the Importance of Systemic Risk

The launch of the euro and, with it, the institutional framework that has been established are raising a number of important issues for the co-ordination of policies, not only within EMU, but also with countries outside the euro area. This paper looks at some of the challenges that the institutions and processes put in place for conducting policy in the euro area pose for international co-ordination. More precisely, it assesses whether there are risks that the new institutional arrangements may generate more imbalanced policies than earlier, thereby creating negative international spillovers. This paper also discusses whether these arrangements may create new systemic risks in international financial markets.Counsellor for Macroeconomic Policies     

Accounting and the European single currency

This paper considers some accounting problems in the period leading up to the introduction of the European single currency, the euro. Taking into account two different scenarios regarding the economic and monetary union (EMU) from its first stage, different aspects concerning the area of accounting have been revised. These include exchange differences, financial states comparison, financial states conversion, increase in capital, discriminatory treatment of active and passive monetary and nonmonetary assets, accounting records, annual accounts or rounding. This paper will point out some of the problematic areas that may arise from the introduction of the euro. Although several aspects have been taken into account, as the EMU approaches, many other issues will need to be discussed.     

SAMs, THE SNA AND NATIONAL ACCOUNTING CAPABILITIES

In this paper, the author argues for radical revision of the 1968 SNA in the direction of simplification, in order to give greater emphasis to essential concepts, and for flexibility, so that each country can develop its own SAMs within a general conceptual framework as a response to domestic priorities and issues. It is suggested that general equilibrium models should replace input-output as the central conceptualisation of the system, leading to an equal emphasis on prices and quantities, and an equal concern within the SNA for income distribution, factor markets and production structure, set in the context of external flows and balances.     

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.     

FINANCIAL OPERATIONS AND MONETARY STATISTICS: IMPROVED CONCORDANCE IN THE FRENCH NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

National accounts are a powerful means of coordinating different statistical systems. The better their classifications are adapted to the basic statistics or the information blocks one wishes to use, the better the national accounts play their part. This statement explains why, taking the opportunity of revising the whole system, French national accountants tried to improve the concordance between financial operation tables and monetary statistics. Other reasons leading to this attempt can be found in the dissatisfaction of users having to face different and inconsistent financial information such as the monetary statistics on one hand and the financial aggregates of the national accounts on the other; and even more reasons appear in the organizational field since those two statistical systems are issued by two neighbour services of the Banque de France, often depending on the same sources. Further, many propitious factors are converging at the same time: the French financial system is undergoing profound transformations originating as much in the behaviour of economic agents as in the law, and the statistical operations have to adapt to these changes. The national accounts will in the near future include balance sheets in which financial asset holdings are directly comparable to the money supply aggregates. In its first part our paper sets forth the detailed reasons for our attempts, the conditions in which it took place and the present results. We have reached a much better degree of consistency between the two systems, even if the final scheme has not yet been adopted in either the monetary field or in the field of national accounts. But an important question remains open about the durability of the harmonization: we think that it could be relatively uncertain because of the differences in the goals pursued by the two systems and the constraints which they face. That is why in the second part of the paper we tried to review the way such a pragmatic undertaking as ours could call into question the way in which financial operations are described in the system of national accounts. If one agrees with the present boundary between the real and the financial sphere, the articulation must remain somewhat elementary. But if one wants to revise the usual so-called dichotomy between financial and non financial phenomena, we think that a complete rebuilding of the conceptual framework of the accounts has to be done; this would necessitate a considerable amount of theoretical and practical work.