A SIMPLIFIED INTEGRATED FORM OF SNA AND MPS*

At present two systems of measurement of national product are in practice, one as defined in the UN System of National Accounts (SNA) and the other termed the Material Product System (MPS) or National Balances for the Economy. In the present paper, an expanded system of accounts integrating the national balances within the framework of a simplified SNA has been suggested. The accounts suggested are mainly the two sets of (i) Supply, Disposition and Domestic Production of goods and services and Consumption Expenditure of Budget and Mixed Organisations and the Population, and (ii) Income and Outlay and Capital Formation Accounts. The system is convenient not only for arriving at estimates by either of the two approaches, but is readily manageable. This set of accounts can, without any effort, be put in the form of a matrix leading to its ultimate integration with either the UN System of National Accounts or a modified system of national balances. The system gives not only the integrated system of SNA and national balances, but also a coded list of transactors and transactions within the economy. This coded list can be used as the first set of information for the creation of the economic data bank for the Integrated Statistical Information System.     

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.     

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.     

A REVIEW OF SELECTED ASPECTS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN THE LIGHT OF COUNTRIES’ EXPERIENCES*

A review of the United Nations System of National Accounts and its implementation by countries is presently being conducted at the United Nations Statistical Office. This article presents a personal and selective account by the author of the results of that review and its consequences for the present structure of the SNA. Information is included on the level of response by countries for the tables of the SNA national accounts questionnaire. It shows that this response is at present sparce, except for the tables on GDP by end use, cost structure and kind of economic activity. On the more detailed level the feasibility of introducing integrated sector accounts into the system has been examined and different approaches compared. Country practices suggest that one way of facilitating the introduction of such accounts would be to eliminate one essential feature of the dual classification of the SNA, i.e., the distinction between quasi-corporate and other unincorporated enterprises. Other modifications of the SNA structure implied below are the introduction on a limited scale of articulation of transactions, the inclusion of additional aggregate income and balancing items, a reallocation of data between the main accounts and the supporting tables, and a better integration of the SNA matrix with the accounts and tables of the system. A reduction of the present number of independent classifications in the SNA is suggested, based on links between categories of different classifications that are assumed in country responses to the questionnaire. A suggestion is made for a uniform valuation of goods and services and income flows, to replace the present complex valuation guidelines on approximate basic and factor values and producers’ prices.     

INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC ACCOUNTING: FRAMEWORK FOR A SNA SATELLITE SYSTEM

National accounts have provided the most widely used indicators for the assessment of economic performance, trends of economic growth and of the economic counterpart of social welfare. However, two major drawbacks of national accounting have raised doubts about the usefulness of national accounts data for the measurement of long-term sustainable economic growth and socio-economic development. These drawbacks are the neglect of (a) scarcities of natural resources which threaten the sustained productivity of the economy and (b) the degradation of environmental quality from pollution and its effects on human health and welfare. In the present paper, the authors attempt to reflect environmental concerns in an accounting framework which maintains as far as possible SNA concepts and principles. To this end, the accounting framework is used to develop a "SNA Satellite System for Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting" (SEEA). Environmental costs of economic activities, natural asset accounts and expenditures for environmental protection and enhancement, are presented in flow accounts and balance sheets in a consistent manner, i.e. maintaining the accounting identities of SNA. Such accounting permits the definition and compilation of modified indicators of income and expenditure, product, capital and value added, allowing for the depletion of natural resources, the degradation of environmental quality and social response to these effects. A desk study of a selected country is used to clarify the proposed approaches, to demonstrate their application in future country studies and to illustrate the quantitative effects of the use of modified concepts on the results of analysis.     

Methods for Environmental and Economic Accounting for the Exploitation of Wild Fish Stocks and their Applications to the Case of Icelandic Fisheries

The paper discusses methods for estimating the value of commercially exploited fish stocks and the cost of exploiting them. Methods which are recommended in the System of National Accounting (SNA) satellite system and the System for Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) and relevant for this task are discussed. The paper questions the relevance of some of these methods. It argues for the integration of economic accounting for wild fish stocks with estimation of efficient management of them. Using biological and economic data makes it possible to produce consistent estimates of the value of fish stocks and the cost of exploiting them. These estimates are useful for national accounting and for guiding management of fisheries. This method allows estimation of the cost of inefficiency of fisheries management besides estimation of the cost of depletion. The different methods are illustrated using data on commercial fisheries in Iceland and the fish stocks that they exploit. It is shown that even if all methods are based on market valuation and use only objective data they lead to very different outcomes.     

《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。     

SUR LA STRUCTURE GENERALE DU SCN A PARTIR DE L'EXPERIENCE DU SYSTEME ELARGI DE COMPTABILITE NATIONALE FRANCAIS

This paper describes the French enlarged system of national accounts, and discusses its relevance for the revision of the UN System of National Accounts. Part I develops the concept of a "Central System" of national accounts, and sets out its minimum requirements and the margins within which adjustments or variants would be acceptable. This part concludes that the Central System is the basic system of macro-economics, and must meet the needs of macro-economists both as to content and coherence. Part II discusses the issue of the complexity of SNA. It proposes the introduction of a "tableau economique d'ensemble" (TEE) to provide an overview of the Central System, and shows how certain complementary approaches dealing with population, employment, input-output, financial operations, and more detailed presentations of wealth accounts and institutional sector accounts can be related to the TEE. The third part discusses the possibilities of deriving directly the accounts of the Central System from microdata for individual units, concluding that although this may be possible in limited special cases such as central government, it is generally impractical. For certain sectors- especially non-financial corporate and quasi-corporate enterprises-a system of intermediate accounts is proposed, which would reflect the data that can be collected from these units without adjustments and/or corrections needed for the national accounts. For other sectors, notably households, only global treatment seems feasible. Part IV introduces the concept of satellite accounts as a means of extending the coverage of the data system without overburdening the Central System. Annexes illustrate the tableau economique d'ensemble, the intermediate accounts, satellite accounts, and accounts relating to such extensions as natural resources and the ecosystem.     

Economic management and organization of Hungarian agriculture

The performance of Hungarian agriculture demonstrates that socialist agriculture in Hungary is able to satisfy the entire food demand of the population and even produce a considerable surplus. An overview of the major characteristics of the Hungarian agricultural system is given. Its performance is analyzed in an international comparison; then its enterprise structure is discussed. The major part of the article deals with the economic management system of Hungarian agriculture and includes a discussion of the main features of present-day agricultural policy and its price and tax system.     

Accounting for Environmental Services: Contrasting the SEEA and the ENRAP Approaches

Both the System of Integrated Environment and Economic Accounting (SEEA) and the Environmental and Natural Resources Accounting Project (ENRAP) are efforts to expand conventional national economic accounts in order to better reflect interactions between the market economy and the natural environment. In order to maintain a close relationship to the System of National Accounts (SNA) accounting standards, SEEA adopts conventional definitions of productive sectors. However, SEEA fails to account for many valuable services of the natural environment and encourages the use of techniques that provide misleading and poor estimates of depreciation and damage to the environment. ENRAP addresses these deficiencies by explicitly recognizing that the natural environment is a productive economic sector. ENRAP encourages the use of imputation approaches that draw on techniques common in the environmental economics literature. These approaches are consistent with definitions of depreciation and environmental damage widely accepted in economic theory. The principles that underlie the ENRAP approach provide a basis for contrasting ENRAP and SEEA empirically. Using Philippine data, SEEA-type estimates are compared with those of ENRAP.     

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.     

两种基于不同理论的绿色国民核算方法比较

本文主要介绍了两种基于不同理论的绿色国民核算方法--GREENSTAMP(GREEned National Statistical and Modelling Procedures)方法和GARP(Green Accounting Research Project)方法的发展和应用.GREENSTAMP方法是以可持续发展理论为基础的模型计量方法,目的在于发展一种理论上严密、实行上可行的衡量满足可持续环境标准的经济产出总量的方法.GARP方法是搜集能够用于估计绿色NNP或者能够用于解释标准国民账户(SNA)的卫星账户的信息的实证研究方法,目的在于给出一个经济活动净福利的准确计量值.通过比较发现,两种绿色国民核算方法均存在一定的优点和缺点.因此,本文提出了将以可持续发展为基础的方法和以福利为基础的方法相结合的两种潜在方法.     

THE 1993 REVISED SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The 1993 System of National Accounts is a remarkable document, but the System also has some major imbalances and omissions. The present paper spells out four aspects of the SNA that require further development: (1) accounting for the costs of economic change; (2) delineation of information as an economic commodity; (3) overhaul of the methodology underlying input-output accounts; and, (4) consequences of the System's implicit use of compacted accounting. These developments can be incorporated in a Supplementary Document in the near future. We need not wait 25 years.     

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.     

ENRAP与SEEA体系中环境服务核算的比较分析

ENRAP和SEEA都设法扩展传统国民经济核算的范围,以更好地反映经济和自然环境的交互影响.ENRAP明确把自然环境作为一个生产性经济部门,采用大量虚拟技术测算环境服务的价值;SEEA采用SNA的生产部门定义与核算准则,但忽略了对许多有价值的自然环境服务的核算.这两大核算体系在环境服务核算的内容、核算方法和核算的结果等方面存在差异.     

The system of national accounts for the new economy: What should change?

The publication of the 1993 System of National Accounts served as a major milestone in creating international standards for compiling a fully integrated set of accounts measuring a nation's production, income, and wealth. While statistical agencies continue to make progress toward full implementation of the 1993 SNA, attention is now turning to perceived deficiencies of the system and areas for possible improvement. This paper discusses several suggestions for possible changes in the national accounts, including inclusion of multifactor productivity measures in the production account, changes to the definition of output for certain financial services, expanded coverage of intangible assets, capitalization of military equipment, inclusion of consumer durable goods in measures of saving, imputation of a rate of return to fixed assets used for nonmarket production, reconsideration of sectoral boundaries, and modification of the definition of capital transfers for capital gains taxes.     

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.     

适应可持续发展战略要求,建立综合环境─经济核算体系

可持续发展是环境与经济发展的有机统一体，它要求一个与之相适应的核算体系。现行的国民经济核算体系，由于其固有的缺陷，不能完成这一任务。1993年联合国出版的《综合环境与经济核算手册》（即SEEA）提供了环境与经济核算相结合的核算体系，可供借鉴。