The System of National Accounts: Review of major issues and proposals for future work (Part II)

Article type: Research Article

Abstract: Two types of features distinguish the national accounts registration from the coverage of other statistical systems. The first are the imputations for transactions that are not valued or not explicitly valued in the market. These so-called non-market imputations cover subsistence production, non-market housewives' activities, services of owner-occupied housing, services of consumer durables and services of government infrastructure and durables. The second types are “attributions”, which are transactions paid for by one sector and registered in the accounts of another sector. Such attributions occur on the income and expenditure sides. On the income side the treatment of employer's contributions to social security pension and life insurance schemes as compensation of employees received by the household sector, and the incorporation of a part of the reserves of life insurance and pension schemes as savings of households can be quoted. On the expenditure side, the present SNA classification of consumption, which is mainly based on who pays, can be split into two classifications, i.e. one by type of consumption – individual and collective – and one based exclusively on the sector which pays. In this context the introduction of enterprise final consumption expenditure as a concept in addition to intermediate consumption could be envisaged.

DOI: 10.3233/SJU-1984-2301

Journal: Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 229-241, 1984