Which way forward for national accounts ? An overview

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Which way forward for national accounts ?An
overview
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Which way forward for national accounts ?

• The central framework what is not changing ?
  what is changing ? which open issues ?
• Income distribution and well-being - breaking
  down the households account into categories
• - articulation with social satellite accounts
• Micro/macro articulation in the enterprises
  sector
• National accounts and globalization of production
  processes
• Interactions Economy / Nature
• Implementation which governance ?

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The central framework (1)

• No change
• Reference units grouped into few institutional
  sectors
• An accounting framework including current
  accounts, accumulation accounts and balance
  sheets
• specificity  capital gains  accounts
• Classifications transactions, other flows,
  assets and liabilities
• Accounting rules
• Are part of the central framework
• IOT including data on production factors
• volume-price decomposition
• Estimates are mostly derived from observed data
  modelling takes up limited room

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The central framework (2)

• No change - Beyond GDP
• Net macro aggregates
• Disposable income and adjusted disposable income
• The link between flow accounts and balance sheets
  accounts the three origins of the changes in
  net worth
• Production is still a key concept the necessary
  equality between value added and income (at the
  global level)
• Possibility to use revaluation accounts to
  undertake additional analyses

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The central framework (3)

• Innovations et open issues
• Innovations (SNA08)
• Welcome ones
• Treatment of RD as fixed asset
• Evaluation of pension entitlements, whatever the
  kind of pension scheme considered
• and a less happy one
• Treatment of military equipment as fixed asset
• Open issues
• Output measurement for financial activities
• Improvements in price/volume measurement (GFCF,
  non market)
• An economy of products for free

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Income distribution and well-being Breaking
down the households account by groups (1)

• Why ?
• HH account
• An indispensable account, built up directly at a
  macro level by way of  mirroring , thanks to
  the central NA framework
• that says however nothing about the
  heterogeneity of individual situations
• Bridging micro and macro approaches, on the basis
  of HH surveys knocking down the  dictatorship
  of average figures , while enhancing their
  credibility
• A productive dialogue between specialists in
  micro social statistics and national accountants,
  that can trigger quality enhancement of
  statistics produced on both sides

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Income distribution and well-being Breaking
down the households account by groups (2)

• First results (for France)
• HH account by category - standard of living,
  household composition, employment status, age of
  the head of household - in 2003 income, final
  consumption expenditure, actual final consumption
• Work to undertake
• Complete the breaking down exercise to capital
  account, financial accounts and balance sheets
  (in practice, only the last one seems attainable
  at medium term for France)
• Produce an evaluation of HH account by category
  in evolution
• Coordinate this type of work at international
  level (see OECD/Eurostat recent initiatives)

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Income distribution and well-being Link with
social satellite accounts

• exemple education
• Within the scope of NA
• Factors of production (nb of teachers, schools)
• Volume of service output (nb of students,
  successful exams)
• Taking into account a quality effect (reasoning
   every things being equal   for succeeding in
  an exam) 
• Outside the scope of NA
• Well-being derived from the use of education
  services, which depends upon the volume of
  services provided but also of other factors
  (students leasure time, socio-cultural
  environment)
• Social satellite accounts should be designed to
  present ressources put at disposal by the economy
  and well-being indicators

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Micro/macro linkage in the enterprises sector

• Work to undertake
• Breaking down the non financial corporations into
  categories
• small/medium/large, public/private, listed/
  unlisted on stock markets
• Possible to compile production and generation of
  income accounts using existing business
  statistical sources
• Investigate the feasibility of the compilation of
  distribution of income account
• For the purpose of this project, it is necessary
  to raise the issue of the reference statistical
  unit switching from the legal unit to the
   real  corporation from an economic point of
  view, profiling multinational enterprises in
   operational divisions 

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National accounts and globalization of production
processes (1)

• MNEs development is weakening the estimation
  quality of national macroeconomic aggregates
• Large and increasing part of exchanges in goods
  and services and of distributive transactions
  between the national economy and the RoW are
   intra-OD 
• Work to undertake
• Distinguishing within the corporation sector
   resident corporations  and  resident
  subsidiaries of multinational corporations
• Compiling a complete account of multinational
  corporations that are (partially) resident
• Systematically distinguishing in SUT the
  transactions on products taking place within a
  same economic unit

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National accounts and globalization of production
processes (2)

• Today
• M P IC C GCF X
• Tomorrow
• Within economic units M P IC C
  GCF X
• Between economic units M P IC C
  GCF X

multinational
country
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Interactions Economy / Nature (1)

• Put the emphasis (also) on final demand
• Estimate physical quantities of pollutants due to
  final demand products (carbon footprint for
  instance)
• Evaluate ecological hidden costs, in monetary
  value
• Increase the value of final demand
• costs payed (price)
• ecological costs not payed related to damages
  to environmental assets

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Interactions Economy / Nature (2)

• An enlarged central framework - 1

planet
Nature
Economy
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Interactions Economy / Nature (3)

• An enlarged central framework - 2

Economy central framework Economy enlarged central framework nature
Final demand FD ecological costs
Saving S - ecological costs
capital transfer - capital transfer
Balance sheet variation ?NetValue S ?NetValue - ecological costs
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Interactions Economy / Nature (4)

• Work to undertake
• Produce  footprint  accounts by type of
  pollutants on a regular basis
• How to estimate unpaid ecological costs in
  monetary value ?
• Launch pilot operations

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Implementation which governance ?

• Large improvements to make on concepts, methods
  and information to be collected
• Develop international statistical collaborations
  (exchanges and co-production of statistical
  information) and inter-disciplinary
  collaborations (statistics, economy, engineer
  sciences, social sciences)
• A logic of  clusters  experiment before
  launching large scale projects under the umbrella
  of international comparisons.
• Building up Purchasing Power Parities at a global
  scale a governance model to follow ?

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Thank you for your attention