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

Abstract

As the System of National Accounts (SNA) provides standards for other fields of economic statistics, a programme of reconciliation and harmonization of international statistical standards has been urged by the UN Statistical Commission. The work is to be pursued in several different fields, particularly the following: (i) external transactions – to clarify the coverage of IMF's Balance of Payments Statistics components vis-a-vis the SNA and to harmonize the two sets of standards; (ii) public sector statistics – to reconcile the differences between SNA and standards developed by IMF for accounts of government and other public institutions; (iii) monetary statistics and flow of funds – to co-ordinate the work on a manual for IMF monetary statistics with SNA standards for capital finance, flow of funds and balance sheet compilation; (iv) income distribution statistics – to include social aspects of income distribution and to co-ordinate this aspect with the World Bank's endeavour on Living Standards Measurements; and (v) activity classification and input-output – to identify differences between commodity classifications of UNSO, EUROSTAT and CMEA and to standardize industrial activities in this respect.

There are plans to proceed with an extension of the accounts (quarterly accounts in order to facilitate the monitoring of short-term economic fluctuations; regional accounts aiding the regional implementation of government policies and development programmes).