ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND THE SNA

The concept of environmental accounting is developing as the system of national accounts (SNA) is being revised. A basic difference at present is that environmentalists regard natural resources as assets analogous to man-made capital, whereas they are treated as free gifts of nature in the national accounts. In this paper the author examines the consequences for the SNA of adopting the environmentalists approach to capital.     

The relationship between government accounts and national accounts, with special reference to the netherlands

National accounts are a macro-economic accounting system that is compiled on the basis of a globally harmonized accounting standard, that is SNA93/ESA95. To a large extent, the SNA93/ESA95 accounting principles are also suitable for government (micro-)accounting purposes, if only because the accounts drawn up according to this standard are comparable across (types of) units and over time. That facilitates performance monitoring and benchmarking. In addition, the ESA95 guidelines and procedures deal with innovative transactions and accounting, which increases the credibility of the accounts. Finally, accounts for government units are then directly comparable with the macroeconomic accounts, which facilitates the link between forecasts for the national economy and drawing up government budgets. This paper also describes the present conversion of government accounts to national accounts for the government sector in the Netherlands and the plans of the Dutch government to change from a cash-based to an accrual government accounting system.     

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.     

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.     

INCOME DISTRIBUTION STATISTICS IN LATIN AMERICA AND THEIR RELIABILITY

This paper is addressed to the question of how far income distribution statistics currently available in Latin America can be relied upon, either to assess the degree of inequality in the national distribution of income or to undertake comparisons between countries or over time. It gives a summary account of research carried out on Latin American data.
The sources available in Latin America for estimating income distributions are discussed. Concentrating the attention on household surveys conducted in various Latin American countries, an inventory of such surveys and their characteristics is offered, along with a detailed exposition of survey methods and income concepts used for estimating household income. Methods used for assessing the representativeness of samples are summarily reviewed. The case for comparing income data from household surveys and population censuses with national accounts estimates is put forward, along with the procedures and assumptions used for carrying out such comparisons. The relative discrepancy between the two sources is taken as indicative of the degree of underestimation of each type of income in each survey. An analysis of such discrepancies across the set of surveys considered gives clues on possible underestimation biases in measuring each type of income and total household income in different types of survey and in population censuses.
Differential effects on comparability of survey results call for appropriate methods of adjusting income distribution estimates to account for the missing incomes. A method for carrying out such an adjustment is applied to income distributions from a selected number of Latin American surveys. The results obtained provide an indication of how much difference it makes to use unadjusted or adjusted data to assess income concentration or to carry out comparisons over time or space.     

《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。     

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.     

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.     

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.     

PROBLEMS OF DETERMINING AND MEASURING THE RELIABILITY OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Most developing countries have compiled national accounts on a regular basis only for the last few years. It has not yet been possible for them to collect many of the statistics necessary to obtain good coverage of their economic activities by methods which would generally be accepted as reliable. Consequently the checks on reliability imposed by the framework of the national accounts are often absent, and the accounts prepared contain many estimates of doubtful quality. These doubts can usually only be removed as statistics collected by better methods become available. This is proving to be a slow process, partly because of the shortage of trained statistical staff and the competing demands of social and demographic statistics and partly because of the inherent difficulties in collecting good statistics from small businesses and traditional households. The need to define traditional households as producers as well as consumers leads to our demanding extra information from this difficult sector. In addition it is often difficult for the national accounts statistician, and even more so for the user, to find out in the time available exactly how some of the statistics with which he is presented were obtained. When this cannot be done it is impossible to assess their reliability. Thus assessing the overall reliability of national accounts in developing countries for even a limited range of uses is at present largely a matter of personal judgment. The information necessary to make more objective assessments rarely exists and hence the problems which developed countries face in using such information are not yet within the experience of most developing countries.     

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.     

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.     

COMMODITY BALANCES AND NATIONAL ACCOUNTS: A SAM PERSPECTIVE

This paper is concerned with the treatment of commodity and activity balances in a national accounts context. It makes use of a general method for reducing the size of a social accounting matrix (SAM) by apportioning the elements of one or more accounts to the rest. The national accounts are looked at in terms of their usefulness for policy analysis, not least analysis of the impact of price changes. The SNA convention of separately distinguishing activities and commodities is endorsed. However, in contrast to the SNA, it is argued that for analytic purposes commodity transactions should be recorded at market prices, with a separate account for each of the markets for a given commodity in which a distinct price prevails. The SNA SAM is shown to be a reduced form of the SAM resulting from this recommended treatment of commodity transactions, while a further round of reductions (apportionments) yields SAMs which are familiar from input-output analysis, in which activities and commodities are not separately distinguished. It is argued that no special effort would be required to produce SAMs in which commodity balances are recorded at market prices as recommended here (the necessary data are also required to produce the conventional SNA tableaux), and that all reduced form versions of such SAMs, including the SNA, are inferior as a basis for the analysis of price effects on the structure of production.     

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.     

MACROECONOMETRIC MODEL EVALUATION,WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE NIF88 MODEL*

This paper has argued that a mixture of procedures is required for the evaluation of a macroeconomic model. Both individual equations and overall model properties are involved, while both formal tests and an informal understanding of the model are needed. The procedures advocated reflect the need for evaluation to be informative and manageable. The bulk of the statistical testing is best conducted at the single equation stage. Evaluation of single equations involves:

• (i) employing a battery of diagnostic tests;
• (ii) specification and stability tests should be designed, where possible, to enhance the power of the test conducted, including by making use of external information;
• (iii) procedures designed to detect influence of particular observations can provide
• (iv) comparison with other information, both from other empirical investigations and from theoretical priors, is necessary to ensure sound results.

     

MEASURES OF TOTAL HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION

By expenditure on education, health, housing and other public services, governments provide many goods and services which are alternatives to, or additional to, household expenditure on consumption. In most Western national accounts, the two forms of consumption are rigidly separated. Yet the combination of the two–the concept of total household consumption–has obvious importance for the measurement and comparison of living standards and for the formulation and analysis of policy. This concept is recommended as an additional aggregate in the revised SNA. It is displayed in the UN International Comparison Project (ICP). It is used as a major aggregate ("total consumption of the population"), although hitherto generally excluding nonmaterial services, in the Material Product System. Yet it is rarely shown explicitly in Western national accounts. One reason is the slow progress in the analysis by purpose of government expenditure.
This paper shows how far figures of total household consumption, and of its division between collective and private consumption, can in fact be derived, for the advanced countries, from the data provided to the UN Yearbook of National Accounts , supplemented b y the ICP. The results show first the wide national variations in the relation between the two forms of consumption but, secondly, the gaps in information on this crucially important topic. The relation between direct government expenditure for collective consumption and transfer payments to households ("social income") is also examined. High and low levels of these two forms of State support to consumption reinforce each other almost as often as they offset each other. But, again, the data provided by national accounting statistics are very incomplete.
This paper was prepared for the 16th General Conference of the IARIW, August 1979.