Examples from NA

National Accounts (NA) is all about classifying data from different data sources into a common framework. This framework is determined by the system of classifications given in the SNA. Data are numbers, but numbers in isolation have little meaning. A classification labels the number along a particular dimension. SNA recognizes many different types of classifications:

• Activities (Industries), such as the ISIC classification

• Transactions, the system of SNA codes consisting of productive transactions (P), distributive transactions (D), capital transactions (K), financial transactions (F), which are hierarchical "tree structure" classifications with many items

• Institutions: S1 for the domestic economy and S2 for the Rest-of-the-World. S1 is further subdivided into S11, S12, etc. for the main types of domestic institutional units

• Products (individual classes of goods and services)

• Debit / Credit (a simple two-node classification essential to bookkeeping)

• Regions (for which special regional classifications exist)

• Valuations (to distinguish between e.g. basic and purchaser prices)

• Time (years, quarters)

Exactly which dimensions we need to incorporate in this “multi-dimensional” classification coding of data depends on the particular NA analysis we are interested in, and can be different in the various parts of NA.

The challenge for National Accounts is to cross-tabulate these classifications into meaningful two-dimensional tabular presentations. Such presentations can be "simple" or "complex" in the following sense:

In NA Builder, a 2-dimensional grid of partitions with common header and stub classifications is called a "template".

Templates are set up or "implemented" in Excel worksheets, by adding the relevant classifications to the header and stub items of the template.

For example, if we have the following simple institutions and transactions classifications

Institutions = {Corp, Gov, HH, ROW}

Transactions = {P6, P2, K1, B1n, B11}

Then the template-to-worksheet implementation goes as follows:

In such an implemented table, data can be entered, as has been done in the above "uses" side of the production account.

In the following sections examples will be given of working with various NA structures in NA Builder.

Supply and use tables (SUT)

A supply and use table (SUT) may be defined as a statistical instrument showing in detailed product and activity breakdown:

• The supply of goods and services, by domestic production and imports;

• The use of goods and services, for purposes of intermediate consumption and for final use (consumption, gross capital formation and exports);

• Value added and its components generated by industries.

The aim of having a SUT is to provide a detailed analysis of:

• The process of production (breakdown of the production account);

• The use of goods and services produced (breakdown of the goods and services account);

• The income generated by that production (breakdown of the generation of income account).

NA Builder is ideally suited to work with SUTs. Examples how NA Builder can be useful for SUT compilation can be found here

Topics in SUT compilation which are explored further are:

• An example of setting up a SUT in NA Builder can be found here

• Some of the automation features of NA Builder can be nicely illustrated by this example and can be found here

• NA Builder contains many data editing features which assist the SUT compiler in balancing the SUT. Some examples can be found here

• SUT's are typically not compiled in isolation but appear yearly, both in prices of the same year and in prices of the previous year. Information on the features of NA Builder to facilitate such sequential processing can be found here

• For analytical purposes it is often useful to combine supply and use tables into a single input-output framework. More information on these tables and the special facilities in NA Builder in working with them can be found here

Sector Accounts

National accounting is all about classifying source data into a system of specific national accounts classifications. Here we will be concerned with two classification: for institutions and for transactions.

Institutions, or institutional sectors, are collections of institutional units, which are economic entities that are capable of owning assets, incurring in liabilities and engaging in economic activities and in transactions with other units. We will show the following institutional sectors in our examples:

• Corp = Non-financial and financial corporations

• Gov = Government

• HH = Households

• NPISH = Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households

• ROW = Rest-of-the-World

Transactions are economic flows that result from interactions between institutional units. The full transaction classification is given in SNA 2008. For our purpose transactions can be classified into five main groups:

• Productive transactions (P)

• Distributive transactions (D)

• Capital transactions (K)

• Financial transactions (F)

• Balancing transactions (B)

Only transactions at a high level of aggregation are included in our examples.

The full sequence of SNA accounts (with the accounts included in our example underlined) can be given as:

Current Accounts

Production Account

Distribution of income accounts

Primary distribution of income accounts

Generation of income account

Allocation of primary income account

Entrepreneurial income account;

Allocation of other primary income account;

Secondary distribution of income account

Use of income account

Use of disposable income account

Use of adjusted disposable income account

Capital Accounts

Capital account

Financial account

Other changes in assets accounts

Other changes in the volume of assets account

Revaluation account

A simplified version of the example contained in SNA 2008 and information on how sector accounts can be implementated in NA Builder can be found here

Social Accounting Matrix (SAM)

An interesting further extension of supply and use tables and sector accounts is the social account matrix (SAM). Some background and an example implementation in NA Builder can be found here

Quarterly National Accounts (QNA)

Some suggestions on how NA Builder can be used for QNA can be found here

Other examples

Some other examples of NA areas where NA Builder may be used have been collected here