The System of National Accounts or SNA (until 1993 known as the United Nations System of National Accounts or UNSNA[1]) is an international standard system of concepts and methods for creating national accounts.[2] It is nowadays used by almost all countries in the world; SNA-type national accounts are one of the world's most important sources of official macroeconomic statistics.[3]
SNA aspires to provide an integrated, complete and up-to-date system of standard national accounts, for the purpose of economic analysis, policymaking and decisionmaking.[4] When individual countries use SNA standards to guide the construction of their own national accounting systems, it results in much better data quality and better comparability (between countries and across time). In turn, that helps to form more accurate judgements about economic situations, and to put economic issues in correct proportion — nationally and internationally.
The first international standard was published in 1953.[5] Additions and revisions were published in 1960, 1964, 1968, 1993 and 2008.[6] After more than four years of work and global consultation with a thousand experts, the pre-edit version for the SNA 2025 revision was adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission at its 56th Session in March 2025.[7] Behind the accounts system, there is also a system of people: the people who are cooperating around the world to produce the statistics, for use by government and international agencies, businesspeople, media, academics and interest groups from all nations.[8]
SNA guidelines have now been adopted in more than 200 separate countries, territories and areas,[9] although in many cases with some adaptations for unusual local circumstances.[10] Nowadays, whenever people in the world are using macroeconomic data, of their own nation or foreign nations, they are most often using information sourced (partly or completely) from SNA-type accounts, or from social accounts "strongly influenced" by SNA concepts, designs, data and classifications. Economists and officials across the world depend on timely SNA data to monitor economic activity, evaluate policy options, and make strategic decisions.
Organizational approach
Adherence to SNA standards by national statistics offices (NSO's) and by governments has always been strongly encouraged by the United Nations and its partner organizations. However, using SNA guidelines for compiling national accounts is in principle voluntary and not mandatory.[11] What countries are able to do, will depend on available capacity, local priorities, and the existing state of statistical development. Government agencies usually determine their own policies for economic statistics, within the framework of local laws. However, cooperation with SNA has many advantages in terms of data comparability and quality, gaining access to data, exchange of data, data dissemination, cost-saving, technical support, and scientific advice for data production.[12] Most countries see the advantages, and are willing to participate. Moreover, if reliable and up-to-date SNA macroeconomic data is not available, this could hinder the financial strategies of governments.[13]
All these organizations (and other associated or related organizations) have a vital interest in internationally comparable economic and financial data, based on data sets obtained regularly from national statistics offices, and they play an active role in the regular publication of international statistics for data users worldwide. The SNA accounts are also "building blocks" for many more macroeconomic data sets which are created using SNA data.
History and actuality
The human practice of accounting is probably circa 9000 years old. In Europe, double-entry business accounting was first practiced in Northern Italy circa 1300 AD.[34]The first systematic attempts at national accounting by individual researchers, from the 17th century through most of the 19th century, aimed mainly to estimate national income and national wealth.[35] The first known attempt in England was by William Petty, in 1665. Petty tried to work out how best to spread the tax burden caused by government spending on the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667). For this purpose, he estimated the income and capital of England.[36] The new science was often called “political arithmetick” (a term invented by Petty) – it aimed to calculate what the best policies would be for the state and the country, with recognition of different economic, social and political interests at stake. The first known estimate of “value-added” in England was created by Arthur Young around 1770, in a production account for agriculture; he also created a national income estimate for England.[37]
At first individual researchers in different countries followed their own approach, although they borrowed ideas from each other. Subsequently (especially in the 1930s) interventionist governments began to organize much more statistical research, and used national income & wealth estimates on a regular basis to inform their fiscal, social and economic policies.[38] The production of “official statistics” was increasingly delegated to separate statistical authorities, bureaus or institutes with considerable scientific autonomy, to safeguard the objectivity and integrity of data reports.
The first global national accounts standard, SNA 1953, was an initiative of the United Nations Statistical Commission. The UN believed that the creation of internationally comparable economic data was essential for its own work, and that such data would also serve many other policymaking needs of government and intergovernmental agencies. UNSD provides a useful overview and summary of the historical evolution of SNA across the last eight decades, with supporting documentation.[41]
Nowadays, the role of the state in the economy has become much larger (see Wagner's Law).[42] As a corollary, the standard national accounts have become much more sophisticated and comprehensive. The aim is now to account systematically for almost everything that happens in the national economy, plus its external transactions. This has to be done in a way that both follows standard recording principles and measurement criteria, and satisfies the data needs of a much wider group of data users.
These data users are not just governments or international and intergovernmental organizations, but also corporations, business people, academics, NGO's, thinktanks, research institutes, interest groups and political parties, media organizations and individual researchers. The global rollout of SNA is no longer the task of the United Nations only. It is shared with other intergovernmental organizations, each of which has its own area of expertise (principally the IMF, OECD, World Bank and Eurostat). Regional SNA advisory organizations and individual experts are also involved.
All of this means that detailed data is nowadays produced for “which types of economic actors do what, with whom, in exchange for what, by what means and rights, for what economic purpose, and how this changes the financial position of the national economy (or parts of it)”.[44] To create comparable data for all countries, requires a conceptually rigorous, logically consistent accounting system, and standardized measurement practices. SNA provides that unitary framework, for the whole world. It also makes an important contribution to democratic participation and democratic representation.[45]
The Penn World Tables and the Maddison Project provide long-run historical time series for SNA-based gross product, national income and capital formation statistics, covering most countries in the world. This data is used by economists, econometrists and economic historians for statistical comparisons and trend analysis across long intervals of time.[46]
To master the whole of the national accounts system take a long time, and even very experienced statisticians can still find some parts of it difficult to understand. Broadly, the SNA framework integrates a series of standards which guide the production of national accounts, including:
Social accounting concepts and methods.
Macroeconomic concepts and theories.
Statistical measurement and aggregation methods.
Terminology standards.
Classification and categorization systems.
Information design principles.
Relevant laws, regulations, agreements, obligations and official rules/procedures governing SNA data production.[49]
The framework guides SNA data producers about what to do, how to do it and why it should be done in a specific way. There is often room for some flexibility of interpretation, but if the standard is accepted, then data have to be produced in line with the standard. It is not possible to set out the whole SNA framework here; this article gives only some of the main points. The official SNA manuals (and associated handbooks and guidelines) provide in-depth and detailed coverage.[50]
Components
To compile an entry in an SNA account, basic logical steps are: accounting goal → economic concept → accounting rules → appropriate measure → measurement technique → data collection → data collation, registration and storage → data calculation/estimation → data result (a statistic) → data vetting/testing → data approval → inclusion in the new accounts table(s) → data publication. In reality, however, the sequence of the data production process may not be so linear and straightforward.
Considerable methodological discussion may occur before the decision is made to use an estimate for the official accounts.
There may be lot of information to assemble and collate, at different stages of the work.
One accounting entry may be derived from other accounting entries, or it has to fit exactly with other accounting entries.
There are often many different rules and guidelines to follow, at different levels of abstraction.
There may be a long way to go from "a general economic measuring idea" to "a precisely defined measurement technique" that yields the correct empirical estimate for an economic concept.
Organizationally, different departments or separate institutes may each create different parts of the national accounts, which are then integrated by a core group of statisticians, accountants and economists.[51]
In practice, the SNA framework used by NSO national accounts statisticians has the following main components:[52]
Calendars, scripts, planning agenda's and deadlines for the annual and quarterly production/publication cycles of SNA data and for statistical development projects.
Required economic observations, records, documentary information and observational data, collected from a variety of sources.
Survey instruments (including questionnaires, sampling frames, data collection and data coding systems, data compilation methods and econometric models).
Coding, categorization and classification systems for observations and data sets.
Purpose-built secure data storage and information storage systems[53] which include a library collection, an archive, networked databases and data warehouses.
A legal framework and NSO protocols for the process of SNA data production, publication, and dissemination.
National registers of institutional units, sectors and sub-sectors defined by institutional type and type of economic activity.
A set of logically related economic processes, concepts, equations and categories, for which empirical measures are produced.
Price and volume indexation methods and rules, and a portfolio of indexes which are continuously updated (for the purpose of uniform valuation and estimation).
Definitions of accounting terms, accounting concepts, account equations, account derivation principles and standard accounting procedures.
Accounting and recording rules for timing, valuation, grossing, netting and consolidation.
Statistical aggregation rules and inclusion/exclusion rules.
Measuring techniques, data calculation methods and estimation methodologies.
Specifications of standards for the structure and content of core accounts and supplementary accounts.
Information design specifications for account formats, texts, layouts and publishing.
A system for allocating data entries/lines to the accounts tables.
Systems for storing finalized economic statistics, and the publication of data series (the finished products, which can also be used to derive/create other statistics).
Methods and models for testing and checking data quality, data reliability, and revision effects.
Systems for providing access to data collections online and offline, and for sending/receiving statistical information internationally.
Systems for outreach, advocacy, training and knowledge-sharing about SNA theory and practice.
All these aspects have to be identified, decided on, approved and documented by the national accounts team and the NSO management, as the official methodology. The NSO has to be able to "account for the accounts", i.e. what was done, how it was done, why it was done, where it was done, and who did it. In principle, it must be possible to track down the whole data production process for every part of the accounts, from beginning to end.
The SNA concepts form a logically consistent system. Its categorization is conceptually coherent, mathematically rigorous and testable. However, in practice it is not exactly 100% consistent. (1) Occasionally a logical incompatibility problem or paradox occurs where one categorization conflicts with another categorization.[54] (2) Statistical discrepancies may occur between different approaches to estimating a stock value or a flow value. (3) Conceptual boundary problems can occur, because the relevant items that have to be counted do not fit exactly with an accounting concept, or because the conceptual boundaries of a category are difficult to apply empirically. (4) There can also be interpretation disputes about how the accounting definitions should be applied in specific cases. (5) In principle, a variable or category should be measured in the same way (using the same method) year after year, but if this is not possible in practice for some reason, data distortions can occur that have to be resolved in some way. (6) It can happen sometimes that there are missing data, creating data gaps.
In a double-entry accounting system, for every item of expenditure/payment there exists in principle an item of revenue/income or receipt (and vice versa), for every debit there is a credit (and vice versa), and for every withdrawal there exists an addition/deposit. This enables checks and controls for the accuracy and reliability of the estimates. In the case of Balance of Payments data, the international transactions are usually measured both by the sending country and the receiving country, enabling reliability checks of the data sets.
In principle, each line-item in the core accounts, whether a large or small aggregate, can be derived by adding/subtracting other items in the accounts and via standard equations, and the tallies can be verified exactly.
If a change is introduced in one part of the system, it can have consequences for other parts of the system, and lead to revisions of the estimates. For example, in December 2024 the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) stated that it had revised the 2023 estimate for the value of GDP by +2.7%, after taking into account results of the 5th national economic census and a change in the method for calculating housing services of urban residents (the impact on the reported economic growth rate for China in 2024 was rather small).[55] In Europe, the ESA 2010 implementation and the introduction of other statistical improvements had the effect of raising the level of EU-28 gross domestic product (GDP) by 3.7% in 2010.[56]
From observables to estimates for SNA stock values and flow values
The observables about the national economy which are the basis for SNA accounts concern the recorded activities of buying and selling; owning, paying and renting; lending and borrowing; disbursing, receiving, depositing and saving; leasing and hiring; financial gains and losses; insuring, charging, taxing and levying; and various other types of financial claims and counter-claims. These economic observables can be identified, allocated and grouped for accounting purposes using six criteria:
Economic actions involving flows of money, goods and services which create, transform, exchange, transfer or destroy (extinguish) economic value, or which change the value, volume or composition of assets and liabilities. The question here is: what sort of economic action is this?
Human purposes for the actions, behaviors and functions of transactors involved in transactions. A transaction is defined as an interaction between separate institutional units which occurs by mutual agreement or through the operation of law, and involves an exchange of value or a transfer of value. The question is: what is the aim or function of the transaction or group of transactions?
Context, location or setting of the transactions or assets/liabilities. Where or under whose authority does a transaction occur, or how does an ownership title/claim arise and change?
Transaction records expressed as money prices or physical volumes (sales, purchases, transfers, incomes & expenditures, and other payments, whether in cash, on credit or in kind). What and where is the registered price data required to estimate an SNA category?
Ownership records for, and changes of, all kinds of asset holdings, liabilities, debts, deposits and financial claims owned by persons and by organizations. What and where is the registered ownership data required to estimate an SNA category?
Effects (measurable impacts or consequences) of economic activity. What can observable and quantifiable economic effects tell us about the magnitudes of economic variables and accounting categories? For example, the data about a natural disaster can help to estimate the value of capital losses for the country.
Using information about these six criteria, SNA accounting rules, and a lot of economic/legal/administrative knowledge, statisticians categorize, group, adjust, aggregate and reaggregate all the observables into a large set of stock values and flow values.[57] These stocks and flows are the basic units of all the accounts in the SNA system. Each line item in the SNA core accounts is either a stock value, or a flow value. Each item can increase in value, stay constant or decrease across time, so that the trend can be measured. There are three noteworthy exceptions:
Some financial account entries are not called "stocks" or "flows" of value, but positions; a position refers to the situation of assets and liabilities held at a specific point in time. This occurs for example in balance sheet accounts and external transactions accounts (Balance of Payments accounts, foreign investment).
Some supplementary accounts (called annexes, supplementary/supplemental tables, satellite accounts, thematic accounts or extended accounts) may show the relationship between financial stocks/flows and relevant social or physical quantities (such as demographic, geographic, environmental or employment variables). In this case, a sum of money is not related to another sum of money, but to a physical, environmental or social aggregate.
Part of the work involved in allocating observables to categories can be automated with the aid of computer programmes, but part of the work requires the human judgement of SNA statisticians. Some transactions are easily identifiable and countable, because they always occur in the same way, and for the same purpose. The way these transactions are recorded is plain, straightforward and uncontroversial. But there are other transactions which are much more complex and changeable - they may not be consistently recorded, and therefore they are more challenging to categorize and allocate correctly for accounting purposes. To understand some types of business and government processes requires a lot of knowledge. To understand the data aggregation methods also requires a lot of specialist knowledge.
Institutional units
To compile the whole inventory of SNA stock values and flow values, a complex grid of concepts, definitions and rules is applied.[58] In this way, all the base data collected to build the accounts is ordered and structured. It begins with grouping the types of registered/recorded “institutional units” of a country, guided by the Classification of Institutional Sectors.
An institutional unit is a separate economic entity which can engage in production and/or trade with other entities in its own right, receive income, own assets and incur liabilities (debts or other obligations to pay). Normally an institutional unit maintains its own business accounts. Institutional units are usually legally defined organizations, social groups, or households consisting of one or more economically active persons. The main types of institutional units are:
Institutional units can be grouped in sectors, and institutional sectors also contain sub-sectors, which identify and distinguish e.g. public and private, market and non-market enterprises, and domestically owned and foreign-owned enterprises, as well as different types of households. Usually the characteristics of all units are registered in large databases with metadata, and are regularly updated. These databases are the largest, most detailed collection of information about all the organizations active in the national economy.
Industrial classification
All economic activities of institutional units in a country are identified and grouped with the aid of the 2023 International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC version 5) or one of its predecessors.[60] When all economic activities are registered in databases with metadata, according to their characteristics, it is possible to sort the data in a huge variety of different ways, at higher or lower levels of generality/specificity. This makes detailed and comprehensive comparisons possible for different economic activities, both within countries and between countries.
Other classifications
There are dozens of other classification systems which are applied to categorize stocks and flows in SNA accounts and sub-accounts. Some classifications are universal, others are tailored to local conditions which could be relatively unique. At more detailed levels, the classification systems may be guided by existing SNA standards, but they may also be adapted to local circumstances or specific purposes (depending on the economic structures and processes involved). For example, the IMFBalance of Payments statistics modify and expand the SNA standards for external transactions with extra details.
The standard classification systems are designed to enable international comparisons. But they are also designed to provide data that give insight into local economic conditions. Statisticians normally try to design categories which combine standardization requirements plus technical essentials with the known needs of data users. If the data categories are not suited to the analyses that researchers want or need to do, or if they are not consistent with what the government requires, then the statistical information is not useful. So this matter has to be thought through carefully.
Categories and classifications in SNA are not so easily changed, because that can create new problems of statistical comparability, and because it can change the estimates of related statistical aggregates. Any classification change must be consistent with SNA concepts. Usually the majority of changes occur when a new SNA revision is released. Examples of some other global standard classifications that are, or will be applied in SNA are:
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA-EA, 2021). For accounting for ecosystem services, environment conditions, and natural capital within the national accounts.
Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP, 2018). For household final consumption expenditure in national accounts, CPI compilation, and household budget surveys.
Status in Employment (ICSE, 2018). For classifying jobs by employment relationship in labour force surveys, social statistics, and labour accounts.
Classification of Financial Assets and Liabilities 2017 for the categorization of financial instruments (e.g., equity, debt securities, loans, currency and deposits, insurance and pension schemes, financial derivatives, other accounts receivable/payable).
Activities for Time-Use Statistics (ICATUS, 2016). For classifying paid and unpaid work in time-use surveys and satellite household accounts.
Classification by Broad Economic Categories (BEC, 2016). For converting trade data into end-use categories (capital goods, intermediate goods, consumption goods), integrating national accounts data and industrial statistics.
Central Product Classification (CPC, 2015). For classifying products and services in supply and use tables, deflators, trade statistics, and price-volume measures in the SNA.
Functions of Government (COFOG, 2000, next revision expected to be finalized in 2027). For classifying general government expenditure by function in public finance and fiscal analysis.
Outlays of Producers by Purpose (COPP, 1993). For classifying producer expenditures by function in satellite accounts such as R&D, health, or environment.
Ten core SNA accounts
Traditionally, the SNA framework provides a set of ten core accounts. The detailed design and terminology has changed somewhat through successive revisions, but conceptually the design remains more or less the same. The accounting principles for each of these core accounts are explained in the SNA manual. Broadly speaking, the ten traditional accounts deal with four main topics: (1) national income & product, (2) capital formation and investment, (3) the national financial position, and (4) foreign transactions of the nation. This provides economic insight into what is happening with production, the generation, distribution and use of income, and the accumulation of wealth of the nation. The ten core accounts can be described as follows:
The production account of economic activity which creates the gross output and gross value-added, generating national income.
The primary distribution of income account (the distribution of gross national income generated).
The redistribution of income account (including transfers and social spending by governments).
The use of income account (consumption expenditure and saving).
The capital account (investment, capital formation and accumulation).
The (domestic) financial transactions account ("flow of funds", borrowing/lending - tracking changes in financial assets/liabilities and debt financing).
The revaluation account (price changes in assets/liabilities of the nation, including capital gains and losses).
The other changes in assets account (changes in assets, liabilities and net worth which are not caused by transactions).
The balance sheet account of assets, liabilities and net worth.
The external transactions ("rest of the world") account (integration of current accounts, capital accounts and financial accounts).
The majority of member countries of the United Nations compile these ten "core" accounts. For each of these core accounts, more detailed breakdowns are possible in additional tables. However, national statistics offices usually do not produce a complete national set of all “possible” SNA accounts. They might not even supply a 100% complete set of national SNA data for the accounts they do publish. The reasons could be (1) that some sorts of data are not applicable/relevant/useful, (2) it is currently too difficult or costly to produce the data, (3) relevant data is not (yet) available, (4) the data is already published elsewhere, (5) there is some kind of official or legal restriction on data production. For example, if there is a lot of tourism in a country, a standard tourism account makes sense. But if there is very little tourism, then producing a standard tourism account may lack a good justification.
The SNA 2025 framework changes the formats of the core accounts to some extent. An important new step in SNA 2025 is the acceptance of more comprehensive household accounts, which according to many experts ought to be a standard feature of the SNA framework (household income, expenditure, assets, liabilities/debts and net wealth). The experience of the 2008 financial crisis revealed that changes in the financial position of households can have very large macroeconomic effects. Traditionally, statistics offices have collected data on household income and spending, but not for the whole financial position of households. An important reason could be that many respondents find the financial survey questions too intrusive, and do not want to cooperate (but respondents might also have difficulty to supply the information). However, in the digital era (and because of legal changes), people's attitudes have often changed, so that they are more willing to provide information (with proper data custody, and anonymized by the statisticians), because they recognize its national importance.
Satellite accounts and supplementary tables
Each of the SNA core accounts can be complemented with annexes providing extra details, sub-accounts with more detailed breakdowns, satellite accounts linked to the core accounts, and supplementary tables (or account variants) providing additional information. Some of these added accounts follow an existing SNA standard, but others could be mainly custom-designed by a national statistics office for its own (limited) uses in local conditions. Ideally all extra national accounts or tables produced by an NSO should be internationally comparable, but that may not always be the case. The non-core accounts are in principle always optional (there are exceptions to this norm in the European Union). Whether extra accounts or extra tables are compiled and published by a national statistics office, depends mainly on their practical usefulness. National statistics offices produce them, if there is a need or demand for such accounts, and if there is a budget to produce the accounts. In some countries, it is not yet feasible to produce particular ancillary or satellite accounts, or it is too costly for them to do that.
Starting with the 1968 SNA revision, standards are provided for input-output tables (I/O tables) showing interactions between production sectors within the national economy (the enterprises of each sector make payments when they purchase inputs from other sectors, and receive revenue when they sell outputs to other sectors, so that the input and output values can be identified). The supply and use tables (SUT tables)[62] are a further development of the input-output analysis for which standards were first created in SNA 1993. These SNA tables provide a detailed breakdown of the origin and use of goods and services in the national economy. They show in matrix format the supply of goods and services from production and imports, and their destined uses (intermediate and final consumption, capital formation and exports). In the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), it is compulsory for EU member states to provide both SNA standard input-output tables and SNA standard supply & use tables to Eurostat, with a deadline of three years.[63]
The term "satellite accounts" (comptes satellites) originated in France.[64] French statisticians created the first official satellite accounts in the late 1960s, initially with experimental housing accounts in 1968. By the 1970s, they had developed systematic satellite accounts for health, education, research & development, social protection, and transportation.[65] The goal was to provide detailed analyses of specific sectors to support government planning – maintaining consistency with the central national accounts framework, without altering it.[66]
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) developed auxiliary accounts for its NIPA framework already in the 1950s, but they were not called "satellite" accounts.[67] In the late 1980s, the demand for environmental accounts was met by the creation of satellite accounts.[68] The US Bureau for Economic Analysis officially adopted a satellite account framework for research & development in 1994 and later for tourism and the space economy, referring to SNA guidelines.[69]
Satellite accounts were officially recognized and defined for the first time in SNA 1993, and elaborated in SNA 2008.[70][71] Several standards for satellite accounts are outlined in SNA 2008 and SNA 2025. Often more comprehensive explanations of standards and their application have been given in special handbooks, brochures or working papers. The OECD provides a guide to designing satellite accounts.[72] In 2019, a review suggested that satellite accounts had been implemented for 21 different topics, with another 11 account topics being planned.[73] Another source claimed that over 80 countries had implemented satellite accounts by 2019, with more than 20 different topics.[74] A 2020 survey about the national use of SNA satellite accounts discovered that 241 satellite accounts had been created by 80 countries for 20 different account topics. The number of satellite accounts per country varied from 1 to 15 accounts, with a median number of 2 accounts, and an average of 4 accounts. The countries with the most satellite accounts were Canada (15), Portugal (13), Israel (9), Australia (8), Finland (8), Lithuania (8), China (7), and Mexico (7).[75]
In SNA 2025, the term "satellite account" is formally abandoned in favour of the terms "thematic account" and "extended account". Thematic accounts disaggregate and rearrange already existing items in SNA core accounts, to make particular aspects of economic relations more visible and explicit. In other words, they provide extra details and breakdowns for the totals given in core accounts. Extended accounts go beyond the conceptual boundaries of the SNA integrated framework, often linking SNA accounting data to external data (for example, demographic data, geographic data, employment data, population data, data on natural resources), with the aim of enabling more comprehensive insight about a topic of interest. In this case, SNA data is linked to non-SNA variables, following standard conventions to assist comparability. The SNA 2025 Manual enlarges the scope of macroeconomic accounting, and defines how SNA standards can be linked to non-SNA standards. For example, SNA 2025 recognizes four kinds of capital: economic capital, human capital, natural capital and social capital.
SNA data sources
National accounts are integrated, composite statistical systems. They bring together raw data, calculated data, estimated data and ready-made statistics using a great variety of sources. Typically, hundreds of separate data sources are used for a complete set of annual national accounts, depending on the size and complexity of the country’s economy.
For example, the British Office of National Statistics (ONS) uses around a thousand different data sources to compile national accounts. The same applies to many European countries. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) obtains relevant data from more than 300 major surveys and administrative sources, and exchanges data with the IRS, the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Labor, and other government agencies.
The source of the data could be a survey, a publication, a government agency, a business agency or institution, an econometric model, or an unofficial source etc. Some of the data sets are fully produced by the national statistics agency itself, some data is imported readymade from other agencies, and some data is obtained from elsewhere but reworked for use in SNA accounts.
National accountants often act as "statistical engineers", who reconcile thousands of inconsistencies between different sources, to obtain valid estimates which conform to national accounting standards.[76] An economic "map" is created for all measured transactions in the national economy. In this map, all stocks and flows are allocated and categorized according to SNA rules. For every entry in the SNA accounts, the appropriate measurement methodology is defined by statisticians, consistent with the SNA manual.[77]
In principle, there is a place in SNA for almost every type of transaction in the economy. However, some things that happen in the economy are not measured in SNA accounts.[78] That is either because they are conceptually excluded from the SNA framework, or because it is practically difficult to estimate them accurately (for example, specific changes occurring within an accounting interval, or changes completed across several accounting intervals; the sales and purchases of specific types of used goods; illegal transactions).
SNA statisticians get the data and information they need to compile the accounts from ten types of sources:
• Direct surveys of business units, institutional units, household units, and consumer units, or special sector-specific sample surveys. These are often sample surveys for specific areas and sectors in the economy (for example, labour force surveys) which are generalized to the whole economy, using a sampling frame based on a geostatistical database for the survey population, and mathematical models. Some direct surveys are taken exclusively for the purpose of compiling national accounts, but the national accounts statisticians also use relevant data from other surveys which are not specifically carried out only for national accounts purposes.
• Census data obtained from population censuses, economic censuses, agricultural censuses and housing & dwelling censuses. Normally a census involves surveying the complete population of an area or sector, not just a sample of it. A national population census is normally taken every five or ten years (sometimes this is temporarily not possible, because of crises, wars or disasters).
• Administrative data. This includes corporate records, company records, institutional records, personal income records and value-added tax records; inventory data; social security contributions and pension records; bookkeeping records and company registers; land and property registers; financial reports of companies and institutions; customs records of imports and exports; licensing databases; and employment registers.
• Public finance statistics, tax data and related data sets obtained from central government, state government, provincial government, district government and local government authorities. Included are the general government accounts, budget allocation and expenditure reports, and expenditures on specific items (for example, defence and education). Sometimes data is also obtained from intergovernmental organizations.
• Central bank, corporate bank and financial institution statistics, including balance sheet data; data on bank loans, deposits and interest paid/earned; insurance and pension fund reports; data on stocks, bonds, derivatives and other asset transactions; and data on various other financial markets and types of financial intermediation. In some cases, private research institutes can provide relevant information.
• Satellite data imported from other statistical agencies for use in standardized SNA satellite accounts (for example tourism, health, labour utilization etc.). This material can be supplied to SNA ready-made, or it can be adjusted somewhat for alignment with SNA standards.
• Econometric models which estimate the value for particular accounting items using observed trends in related contemporaneous data which are already available. Models are not only used for sample surveys. They are also used to extrapolate data sets which are too costly, impractical or impossible to obtain from an alternative source. Models are also useful to test the reliability of the data series that are produced. Quarterly economic data is often obtained with the aid of mathematical models plus leading empirical indicators and data series that can reliably predict the quarterly trends.
• Price indexes, including price and volume indexes for traded goods and services; consumer price indexes; producer price indexes for inputs and outputs; capital expenditure indexes; asset price indexes; export and import price indexes; real estate and construction cost indexes. A national statistics office in the larger countries typically uses 500 to 2000 price indexes. Most price indexes are usually produced by the national statistics office itself, but in some cases, they are produced by other government agencies, by research institutions, or by foreign agencies. They are crucial for the accurate estimation and uniform valuation of entries in the national accounts.
• Online data sources. Increasingly, national statistics offices make use of publicly accessible online data and databases maintained by private sector organizations, as a source of data. Examples are web-sourced information on retail prices and retail volumes, tourism data and transport/mobility data.[79] Different government agencies also share or exchange information from their digitalized administrative databases.
• International sources: information is obtained from government agencies in other countries, for export and import statistics, balance of payments statistics, international trade in services statistics, tax and pension treaty statistics, foreign income & remittances, and foreign direct investment statistics.
SNA statisticians can refer to all kinds of national and international documentation, including scientific or other academic literature and news stories. But they cannot collect data from just any source at will.[80] Much of the detailed source data used to produce economic statistics is confidential or secret information (for privacy, military, official and business reasons). Normally only the anonymized aggregates derived from the detailed base data are accessible and published in the accounts (many more tables and accounts are produced by national accounts research staff which are not accessible to the general public, or which are not officially published).
Normally there exists a national or federative legal framework[81] for the collection and publication of all official statistical data (not just SNA data), which defines (1) the obligations to supply and collect data, (2) legitimate use of data, (3) protection of data, (4) privacy rights and (5) the release of data. The national statistics office must specify "under whose authority" the information is collected, and "for what purpose". National accounts data can only be collected if it is really necessary to produce the national accounts. In this way, the response burden is kept within acceptable bounds for data suppliers, unnecessary costs are avoided, and there is less chance of response error, data sabotage or non-compliance with information requests (see, for example, the 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act of the United States).
Important reasons why some types of information are traditionally not collected, is simply because there is resistance to supplying it, or a lack of trust. Sometimes the data is practically difficult to obtain. Ultimately SNA statistical research cannot be done successfully, if people do not cooperate with information requests. Different countries have different laws, but usually there are norms and rules for relevant data collection. A lot of thought goes into finding the best ways to approach individuals and organizations for information requests, so that the response rate is high, the response burden is low, response errors are low, and response quality is high.
The world's largest national accounts
How the “largest national accounts” should be defined is debatable.[82] The criterion used here is population size, because as a general rule the larger the population is, the larger will be the volume and complexity of transactions and transfers that have to be accounted for. In 2025, the world’s eight largest countries by population together had about 4.67 billion residents, which is equal to about 56.7% of the total world population. The United States and the European Union are included as "countries", because they produce integrated national accounts based on data from their member states.
India first introduced national income estimates in 1952, and has progressively integrated SNA updates in its National Accounting System (NAS), including the 1968, 1993, and 2008 revisions. NAS adheres broadly to SNA concepts (such as GDP, Gross Value Added, and sectoral accounts), but also uses country-specific methods to deal with data limitations, a large informal sector, and local administrative practices. India's Central Statistics Office (under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) continues to revise the NAS to improve harmonization with SNA standards, but retains methods specially designed for Indian economic conditions.[83]
Annual SNA-based estimates for the People's Republic of China (excluding Hong Kong,[84]Macao[85] and Taiwan[86]) were first produced for 1985. For 1985-1992, separate national accounts were compiled according to the Material Product System (MPS) and SNA 1993, although at that time the SNA data were mainly derived from MPS accounts (using a conversion method created by the United Nations Statistics Division).[87] In 1992, SNA was adopted by the National Bureau of Statistics of China as the official accounting system. From that time, the MPS system was abandoned, and Chinese national accounts were directly compiled in accordance with SNA principles.[88]
Eurostat uses a version of the SNA for the European Union, called the European System of Accounts (ESA).[89] Participation in the ESA system is mandatory for European Union member states.[90] All EU Member States are legally obliged to use ESA 2010 for their national and regional accounts.[91] This includes providing standardized macroeconomic data to Eurostat, consistent with the ESA framework. The ESA concepts are uniformly applied in budget reports by EU member governments and in their official financial statistics, as well as in EU financial surveillance systems for member governments. For example, according to the EU Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), EU government budget deficits must ordinarily not exceed 3% of GDP, and the norm for EU government debts (the public debt) is that they must not exceed 60% of GDP.
The American-designed National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA), used uniquely in the United States, feature broadly the same concepts as SNA, but they differ from the SNA in details of methodology, classifications and presentation.[92] The traditional similarity between the SNA and the NIPA exists, because the original design of the SNA in 1953 was to a certain extent modeled on the NIPA accounting system already adopted by the US federal government in 1947.[93] The subsequent SNA revisions were also informed or influenced by developments in the NIPA accounts. Since 1993, the American Bureau of Economic Analysis has made an effort to achieve greater conceptual consistency with SNA standards.[94] The differences in data and presentation between the two systems are not an insurmountable problem, because the NIPA and the SNA both provide sufficient information to rework statistics to match each other's concepts, categories and classifications.
The national accounts of Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria are all based on SNA concepts and methods, but with differences in the SNA versions used, implementation quality, and institutional capacity. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) uses the SNA 2008, and is highly advanced in social accounting, with full implementation of institutional sector accounts, supply and use tables, quarterly national accounts and integration of satellite accounts (e.g., environmental accounts, health, and education). Statistics Indonesia uses SNA 2008, and its accounts are quite comprehensive. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics uses SNA 1993 and SNA 2008, but complete data is not yet available for all standard SNA accounts. The National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria (NBS Nigeria) uses SNA 2008, aiming to rebase the data sets to 2019.[95]
In Latin America and the Caribbean, there is the regional program Sistema de Cuentas Nacionales (SCN), coordinated by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)[97] together with the UNSD, IMF, and World Bank. Its aim is to organize, standardize and harmonize the implementation of SNA 2008 across the region. There are 33 participating countries.
The GCC Statistical Center (GCCStat, Gulf Cooperation Council) coordinates statistical work, including national accounts, for Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. It is moving toward SNA 2008-compliant national accounts. The focus is now on non-oil sectors, satellite accounts, and price indices. Although it is not a UN organization, the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) works with the UN to support statistical capacity and socio-economic research in Islamic countries.
To support and harmonize the implementation of SNA across the Pacific region, several organizations provide technical assistance and capacity-building initiatives. Pacific Community's Statistics for Development Division offers guidance and training to enhance statistical systems. The Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Centre (PFTAC) aims to strengthen institutional capacities in macroeconomic and financial management, including national accounts statistics. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) conducts regional programs to improve economic statistics in Asia and the Pacific. In addition, the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) network is also active in the region.
Publication of SNA data
No single agency has a monopoly on publishing SNA statistics. There are few universal standards for how exactly SNA data are published, in print copy or digitally. There is no universal SNA logo, trademark, barcode or QR-code. National statistical offices typically publish SNA-type national data series using their own formats and styles. International organizations like the IMF, OECD, the World Bank and Eurostat sometimes adjust national SNA data according to their own methodologies. International agencies will often include adjusted United States data sets in their comparative SNA statistics, even though the US has its own NIPA accounting system. Sometimes estimates for core variables are included for countries/areas which are at present still outside the SNA aegis.
Published SNA statistics can be freely used and cited by the public, provided that the source is acknowledged correctly by the user. More detailed accounts data at a lower level of aggregation is often available on request. Statistics offices typically provide a lot of information free of charge (as a government-funded public service). However, usually they do charge fees for many printed and copyrighted publications, for the supply of specialized data sets, and for specialized data services. How exactly the boundary between paywall data and free data is drawn, and what the costs are, can vary from country to country. It may depend on who the data users are, what sort of data they want, how the data is used, and what the local laws and policies permit.
For particular sorts of SNA data sets, one national or international agency is usually the "primary" publisher. For example, international agencies are more likely to publish comprehensive international comparisons of SNA data on a regular basis (for example, UNSD, OECD, IMF, World Bank and Eurostat). Detailed national SNA statistics are usually available from national statistics offices or national governments.[100] Data users have the option of getting their national data sets either from national statistics offices, or from intergovernmental bodies, or from some third-party source (such as central banks, economic research institutes or academic collections).
Economic and financial data produced by UN member countries are used to compile comparable annual (and sometimes quarterly) data on the gross product, national income, investment, capital transactions, government expenditure, and foreign trade. The results are published by national statistics offices, but also in two UN Yearbooks: (1) National Accounts Statistics: Main Aggregates and Detailed Tables and (2) National Accounts Statistics: Analysis of Main Aggregates. From 2025 onward, the yearbooks are published in line with the SNA 2025 standards. The values provided for the accounts of individual countries in the UN yearbooks are cited in the national currency.
Current and constant US dollar equivalents can be found in the online UN National Accounts Main Aggregates Database. Additional variables can be accessed online in the UNdata Portal. Alternative sources of GDP and its components in US dollars at current and constant prices are the World Development Indicators (WDI) of the World Bank, and the World Economic Outlook Database of the IMF. Both the World Bank and the IMF use exchange-rate converted GDP estimates and PPP-adjusted measures. The IMF publishes comprehensive SNA-based Balance of Payments statistics for the world's countries, as well as comparative statistics on government finance. The OECD[101] and the World Bank publish a lot of SNA-based comparative economic statistics, country reports and regional reports. To make the comparisons, the data series often have to be converted to a common currency (usually US dollars).
National accounts data is prone to revision. A very large number of different data sources, entries and estimation procedures are involved that have impact on the totals. Discrepancies can occur between the totals cited for the same accounting period in different publications issued in different years. The "first final figures" may later be revised, sometimes several times. The revisions may be quantitatively slight, but cumulatively across e.g. ten years they can sometimes alter a trend significantly. The researcher has to bear this in mind when seeking to obtain consistent data series. Often it is possible to link old and new data series using some suitable chaining method. The possibility of data revisions are a good reason for correctly citing the source of the data.
SNA data quality and coverage
SNA data quality is relatively good, because there are data standards, and because the data are regularly checked and monitored by several agencies, not just by the data producers. Nevertheless, the data sets of some countries are much more complete than others. Both the quality and the comprehensiveness of national accounts data can differ between countries. There are six main reasons:
Available resources: some governments (such as in OECD countries and countries with large populations) invest far more money and employees in statistical research than other governments. What matters in this sense is, above all, whether a society sees the value of statistics, makes extensive use of statistical expertise for analytical and policymaking purposes, and therefore is sympathetic to investing in the statistical enterprise.
Local conditions: economic activity in some countries is much more difficult to measure accurately than in others — for example, there may exist a large grey or informal economy; pervasive illiteracy; the absence of a cash economy; survey access difficulties because of geographic factors; socio-political instability; pervasive corruption; disasters; pandemics;[102] public hostility to statistical surveys; lack of accurate population and address registers; armed conflict and large-scale wars; or large-scale mobility/migration of people and assets.[103]
Degree of autonomy: some NSO's have more scientific autonomy, mandates and budgetary discretion than others, allowing them to do surveys or create statistical reports which other statistical agencies are prevented from doing, for legal, financial or political reasons.
Expertise: some countries (for example, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia and the United States) have a strong intellectual (scholarly, professional or cultural) tradition in the area of national accounts and social statistics, sometimes going back a hundred years or more. Other countries (such as African countries), where a population census began to be organized by the government much later, and where most universities started later, do not have such lengthy research traditions. However, developing countries have the advantage, that in creating their statistics production systems, they can often adopt straightaway the very latest and most advanced methods and technologies in the world, without having to go through endless revisions and changes from old methods to new methods.
Legal frameworks: there can be specific legal rules which influence the quality and coverage of national accounts, because they can facilitate, or restrict, or block statistical research in specific areas.
Ability to adapt: the statistical enterprise is in some respects intrinsically conservative, because it adheres to a legal framework, and must safeguard the continuity of comparable statistics, not just in the present, but also for future generations. Yet the real world also changes, and the statistical enterprise must change with it. What makes a big difference, is the ability to adapt to new circumstances, guided by wise management and competent advisors. In some countries, there exists a better ability to adapt than in other countries (but there may be no simple explanation for why this is so).
The United Nations and its partners have rather little power to enforce the actual production of statistics to a given standard, even if international agreements are signed by member states. But they can help with technical advice, training and capacity building. The UNSD collects and archives national accounts statistics from most of the world's countries and territories.[104] Some of the world's states are part of other international/interstate unions (for example the European Union, the OECD, or the United States), which oblige member states to supply standardized data sets, for the purpose of interstate or international comparisons and coordination. In exchange for supplying data, countries can also receive foreign data and expert scientific advice. So there are incentives and benefits for countries to cooperate, for the sake of obtaining more useful, comprehensive, and internationally comparable statistical information. If they cooperate, countries can obtain vastly more foreign statistical information and expertise at a lower cost, which matters if the information is essential to have for local, national and international decision making. The bottom line for the quality of official national accounts data is adequate funding and staffing, cooperation and trust.[105]).
SNA Developments
SNA continues to be developed further. International conferences are regularly held to discuss various conceptual and measurement issues, and proposed revisions. This is necessary, because the world changes,[106] new data needs emerge, new coordination/integration challenges arise, and new production techniques become available.[107] The proposed SNA 2025 provides for many new standards and supplementary SNA tables on different topics.[108] Many of the new supplementary tables aim to link SNA financial data with social or physical statistics from other international or national agencies, with the aim of providing standardized, comparable national data sets on specific topics (such as labor use, natural resources, productivity, health etc.).
Discussions and updates are reported in the news bulletin SNA News and Notes.[113] Official SNA revisions are always documented at the UN Statistics Division site.[114] For the 2008 SNA revision, the full final text is available online.[115] For the 2025 Revision, only the pre-edit document is available so far; the final official text still has to be approved and published.[116] The pre-edit version of SNA 2025 shows which text from SNA 2008 is revised, and which text is a new addition to SNA guidelines.
Achievements of SNA
After more than 70 years of development across the world, the System of National Accounts is the only comprehensive, internationally agreed standard for national accounting practice. It is now used by almost all governments, universities, and international financial institutions, as well as by enterprises, economic research institutes, thinktanks, NGO's, interest groups, media and private researchers. It provides detailed guidance to national statistical offices in more than 200 countries, territories and areas. Its globally standardized approach ensures that economic activity is measured on a conceptually consistent and quantitatively comparable basis across the whole world.
The SNA offers a coherent, integrated set of macroeconomic accounts built on shared concepts, definitions, classifications, and accounting rules. It provides a comprehensive framework for recording most of the important stocks and flows in the economy of every nation, including production, income, saving, investment, and both financial and nonfinancial wealth. It also encompasses input-output tables, supply and use tables, financial accounts, balance sheets, and international transactions. These accounts are an indispensable source for a wide range of macroeconomic statistics used by policymakers, researchers, investors, entrepreneurs and institutions in all countries.
For the first time in history, the SNA framework has made it possible for almost all countries and territories to produce internationally comparable economic indicators on a regular basis. It offers empirical insight into the size, structure, and evolution of economies, and facilitates the quantitative analysis of national and global economic trends, problems, and developments. It plays a central role in the growth of knowledge and international understanding of economic life in all countries. SNA data sets enable opinions and hypotheses about the economy to be tested in a comprehensive way, and can contribute to greater objectivity about economic affairs. The quality of the data is checked regularly by different agencies, at the national and international level. The SNA also supports the development of satellite accounts — modular extensions allowing for specialized analysis (in areas such as environmental accounting, the economic contributions of tourism and cultural industries, health expenditures and financing, expenditures and investments in education etc.) — while maintaining consistency/compatibility with the core accounts. While SNA accounts are not designed to provide all the data relevant to solving all of society's problems, they can complement other information sources to improve understanding, reasoning and effective action.
The SNA architecture is one of the biggest collaborative achievements in the global statistical system. Its maintenance and development depend on broad national and international cooperation by national statistical offices, individual experts and related agencies, coordinated through intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, OECD, and Eurostat. This cooperation is mostly based on voluntary agreements and mutual understanding among countries. It enables the use of shared methodologies, terminology, a common language and classifications, and supports the dissemination of economic information worldwide through many different channels. The system also contributes to capacity building on the ground, providing technical assistance and staff training to national statistics offices, especially in emerging, transitional, and developing countries.
Designed for universal use, the SNA framework accommodates the needs of countries at all levels of economic development, and in all national contexts. It facilitates integration with other statistical systems, and promotes coherence across different domains of economic and social statistics. Ongoing research and discussion ensure that the SNA can meet new challenges, such as measuring the digital economy, accounting for cryptocurrencies, and incorporating environmental sustainability measures. With continual efforts for improvement and refinement, SNA remains an indispensable tool for achieving consistency, comparability, and clarity in the statistical representation of national economies and the world economy.
Debates about SNA
SNA data is used every day by millions of public servants, private sector data professionals, businesspeople, media and academics worldwide. Without SNA data (whether published by the UN, or published by other agencies), they would have no internationally comparable data on the economy of different countries. So the data users appreciate that the information is available. However, SNA has also been criticized for its shortcomings.[117] That is to be expected — with so many users of SNA data worldwide, and given the limits of what the SNA accounts can provide for different countries, it is simply impossible to satisfy everybody's economic data needs all of the time. For example, it has been argued that SNA should include measures of happiness, but this idea has never been implemented.[118] There do already exist international happiness measures, such as the World Happiness Report, which can be compared with SNA economic variables.[119] The United Nations introduced the Human Development Index in 1990 specifically because it was felt that economic indicators alone are insufficient to assess human development; economic indicators do not necessarily express the average quality of life of a country’s residents.
Representation issues
The criticism most often made of SNA is that its design, concepts and classifications do not adequately reflect the interactions, relationships, and activities of the real world.[120] The effect of that is (allegedly) a distorted picture of the world. For example, there are the following sorts of criticisms:
The SNA system allegedly does not provide explicit detail for particular economic phenomena, suggesting thereby that they do not really exist or are of no significance (for example, Islamic banking, large multinational corporations and small business, the value of natural resources, the value of housework). The largest global capital asset is residential housing (and more generally, real estate),[121] but there are few internationally comparable economic statistics for it.[122] In many countries, the national statistics office does already survey and provide household financial statistics, but the statistics are not (or not fully) standardized, often incomplete and therefore not internationally comparable (or difficult to compare).
There is allegedly something wrong with the valuation scheme that is being assumed (for example, the productive contribution of capital assets, the income of banks and other financial institutions, the services of owner-occupied housing, the value of natural capital).
In the valiant attempt to include transactions of all "micro" business activities under general "macro" headings, the true situation is allegedly misrepresented because a large portion of micro-transactions does not easily fit under the general conceptual headings (for example, the informal economy).
It is claimed that the traditional structure of SNA, based on the concepts of value-added and capital formation, plus a particular view of assets and liabilities, is in reality no longer adequate to describe the modern economy.[123] This is (allegedly) caused by (1) successive piecemeal or "patchwork" revisions, which aim to preserve continuity and comparability, but which are now out of step with economic science and economic reality, (2) the increase of non-traditional transactions and economic activities as well as totally new financial phenomena, and (3) changes in the weighting and composition of many different kinds of economic activities which are not adequately reflected in SNA categorization and classification systems — within countries, between countries and between regions.
National accounts data on their own are, it is claimed, not useful to solve many of society's problems, because those problems really require quite different kinds of data to solve them (for example, population data, behavioral data, attitudinal data, legal data, or physical data). So, SNA data really need to be integrated with other data in a standard way, to provide useful international comparisons.
National accounts data are often revised to some extent after the first release. The effect can be, that financial markets overreact in the wrong way, when the first estimates are published. Sometimes politicians try to interfere with or downplay the figures that are released, to calm the markets (normally this is rare, because the risk is that people will no longer trust the figures, which increases business, political and consumer uncertainty).
The international streams of past and present publications about SNA and SNA data can appear to data users as a complex "jungle", which lacks oversight, transparency, coherence and consistency. It may take a lot of time and effort to track down the comparative statistics that researchers want to use. Cognitively helpful information design, clear fonts and layouts, and comprehensible language are allegedly often lacking in official publications. Online databases may not be user-friendly. Little comparative research of good quality is done about SNA data users — what data users are looking for, how they use the data, what problems they encounter, what improvements could be made etc. There is no standard SNA user survey with good questions that provides essential and useful information about data users (both organizations and individuals), so that communicating about data can be improved on the basis of reliable evidence.
SNA authorities have responded to such criticisms in many different ways, large and small.
In the last decades, there are constantly many efforts across the world to standardize statistical data to make them internationally comparable, with equal or similar data quality. SNA was created specifically as a tool for measuring changes in economic activity, national income and economic growth in a standard way, which enables international comparisons. SNA was not designed to include “everything we need to know about a country or about the world”, and it is impossible for SNA to do that. SNA design is a compromise involving many different concerns and interests, but it aims to be the best possible compromise that is currently feasible. There are many data topics which, although they are not included in the SNA framework, are already covered by other United Nations agencies or by its partner organizations. As regards current topics of interest, the United Nations is often already developing concept & methods for statistical information (e.g. islamic banking[124]), or there is already an UN agency which supplies data (e.g. UNCTAD provides data on multinational/transnational corporations). Furthermore, a lot of SNA data that seems to be "not available" can be obtained simply by digging deeper into the detailed breakdowns of the SNA tables. Quite often, there exists much more SNA statistical information than most data users actually use.
Many concerns about unmet data needs are being addressed via the design of supplementary SNA standard tables or SNA satellite accounts (thematic and extension accounts), which provide modified SNA aggregates for special uses, or which integrate SNA accounts data with social, demographic, financial or environmental data from other sources. The advantage of this approach is that the comparability with traditional SNA accounts and previous SNA data is not jeopardized by constant revisions to accommodate new data demands. SNA requires standard, comparable accounting formats, and its design has a specific, limited statistical purpose. Some types of data production simply do not fit with that structure and purpose (but SNA data could be combined with data from other sources). The SNA 2025 manual provides standard conceptual frameworks to address the majority of the contemporary concerns and data needs, clearly distinguishing between what SNA can contribute and the integration or matching of the SNA framework with non-SNA standards. It is primarily the responsibility of the national statistics offices to take the initiative to produce new and additional data that fit with the new SNA 2025 frameworks for various new topics, if they consider it important to create that data, in the present or in the future.
Particularly in OECD countries, a great effort has been made by national statistics offices to supply timely SNA data which is accurate and complete, and which does not have to be revised very much afterwards. Modern technology increasingly makes possible much faster data collection, processing and publication, because it can be done with digital and online questionnaires (sometimes using mobile phones); digital coding; data warehouses; automated searching, editing, error-tracking and dataset construction; automating procedures with artificial intelligence, etc. Aided by modern computers, data production can often be realized faster, more efficiently, with fewer errors and better quality. This is especially important in countries with very large survey populations (for example, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States).
Statisticians do their best to safeguard the autonomy, objectivity, quality and integrity of data production and data releases, with specific professional protocols and the provision of explanations to the public about significant statistical trends.[125] There are now more and more different ways to make data available to users, and much more attention is being given to information design to make data understandable.[126] Vastly more data is available than is actually used for empirical investigation by researchers. In the digital era, people have to process much more information in much less time. To do this, they have to be able to find/navigate through records, data sets and documents faster. There is growing awareness that good, thoughtful information design saves time, effort and money. It also prevents eyestrain and headaches. Data means nothing, if it is not communicated in an effective way so that people can understand it.[127]
Criticism of GDP
The most popular criticism of national accounts concerns the concept of gross domestic product (GDP). GDP has been criticized from all sides for what it does not measure, or because it allegedly mismeasures the national economy. Economists like Joseph Stiglitz have argued that a measure of "well-being" is needed to balance a measure of output growth.[128] Such measures have already been designed, but so far they have not been widely included in national SNA accounts. However, SNA 2025 does broaden the national accounts framework, to account better for elements affecting wellbeing and sustainability, and inform various policy goals of governments and international organizations.
In part, the criticism of GDP is misplaced, because the fault is not so much with the concept itself. It is useful to have measures of the value of a country's total net output and measures of national income, showing their changes over time – that's better than having no measures at all. The fault is more with the actual use that is made of the concept by governments, intellectuals, the media and businessmen in public discourse.[129]
GDP measures are frequently misused by writers who do not understand what the measures mean, how the measures were produced, or what the measures can be validly used for. Many of the critics of SNA have no real knowledge about the main purpose of SNA, never mind understanding the possibilities and limits of the accounting design. GDP is used for an enormous diversity of comparisons, but many of those comparisons may conceptually not be valid or not appropriate.
In the US, for example, it is very common for politicians and the media to equate GDP with "the economy", but this is plainly false — GDP does not measure all economic activity, it is only a measure of the new gross value added generated by production during an interval of time (the net value of a country's output) which, in the SNA accounts, equates to certain measures of national income/expenditure.[130] All economic activities, transactions and incomes which are outside the SNA production boundary (for example, asset trades, receipts of property income, transfers and capital gains) are not included in Gross Output and GDP.
For another example, a popular statistic is "public debt as a percentage of GDP". This debt/GDP ratio could be understood (wrongly) to mean that the public debt, or its annual repayment, is a component of expenditure on GDP, or that it represents the size of national income currently required to pay off the national debt. What this debt/GDP ratio ignores, is that the coverage of the public debt variable and the coverage of the GDP variable are quite different. GDP includes only flows of incomes/expenditures and taxes considered to be inside the production boundary, i.e. flows directly generated by production. GDP does not include all the revenues and expenditures of the government, it does not include all the revenues and expenditures in the economy, and it is not a measure of assets or liabilities. The debt/GDP ratio says nothing about the amount of principal and interest that must repaid per year or per quarter. To assess a financial position, debt liabilities incurred must in principle always be related to the total assets held and the total revenues from which the debt can be repaid. It must be made clear how much must be paid each year or quarter to repay the debt (which is usually not the whole sum). If (say) a couple applies for a home mortgage loan from a bank, the bank usually wants to know much more financial information than just their annual net salary from work. To assess the total "mortgage" of the whole national economy, both public debt and private debt has to be considered - quite often, private debt exceeds public debt, by a large margin.
The main response by statistical authorities to the criticism and misuse of GDP data has not been to abandon or abolish the GDP measure.[131] Instead, statisticians have provided additional, complementary data sets about phenomena which GDP does not measure, and cannot measure.[132] With this approach, most data users can get the data that they want, most of the time, without denying the data needs of other users. There are official limits to the varieties of data that can be made available, but with the aid of modern technology, a vastly greater variety of data can be made accessible to the public, at the touch of a button.
Feminist concerns
SNA has been criticized as biased by feminist economists such as Marilyn Waring,[133]Maria Mies,[134]Lourdes Benería,[135] and Nancy Folbre,[136] because no imputation for the monetary value of unpaid housework or for unpaid voluntary labor (mainly done by women) is made in the accounts, even although GDP does include things like the "imputed rental value of owner-occupied dwellings"[137] and an imputation for "financial intermediation services indirectly measured" (FISIM). This SNA omission of unpaid housework (because it falls outside the SNA "production boundary"[138]) is said to obscure the reality that market production depends to a large extent on non-market labor being performed.[139] In turn, that lacuna in the data allegedly promotes a distorted picture of economic life (which in reality includes both paid and unpaid work).[140]
However, such criticism does raise technical issues[141] for the statisticians who would have to produce the standard data, such as:
whether an international standard method of comparing the value of household services is technically feasible, given e.g. that the precise financial arrangements between household members are difficult to verify and measure, and that the conditions under which the market equivalents for unpaid household services are supplied vary greatly between countries.[142]
whether making imputations for the value of women's voluntary work would result in truly meaningful and uniformly valued measures.[143]
whether attaching a price to voluntary labor, done primarily by women, itself actually performs an emancipatory or morally propitious function, or has a general useful purpose beyond academia.[144]
The intention of those who would like to produce standard data for the imputed market value or imputed cost of women's voluntary labor can be perfectly honorable. Many scientific studies already exist on the subject.[145] However, the production and cost of creating this data every year, as a standard procedure, has to be justifiable in terms of scientific feasibility and practical utility. It could be argued that attaching an imaginary price to housework as a standard international procedure, might not be the best data to have about housework. It míght not make people who do housework more valued in the eyes of others, and it might not result in a general improvement of social attitudes and behaviour. There is certainly a permanent need for data on housework and voluntary work, because (as surveys prove) so many people are involved in it. But SNA might perhaps not be the best place to supply that data. There have nevertheless been quite a few proposals for a standard SNA satellite account for household labour[146]).
The (pre-edit) SNA 2025 manual provides a definitive solution: it revises and refines the concepts for the analysis of the household economy; it encourages countries to develop extended accounts for unpaid household service work (in chapter 1:64); recognizes the importance of the household economy for wellbeing (in chapter 2:56-61); fully integrates voluntary and unpaid labour into labour accounting (in chapter 16); and specifies the standard conceptual structure and formats of accounts for "unpaid household service work" in chapter 34:83-103. However, the creation of such satellite accounts by NSO's remains optional and voluntary, not compulsory or obligatory, and it does not necessarily mean that all countries will regularly produce such accounts, using exactly the same measurement techniques.
In most OECD countries so far, statisticians have usually estimated the value of housework using data from time use surveys.[147] The valuation principle applied is usually that of how much a service would cost on average, if it was purchased at market rates, instead of being voluntarily supplied. Sometimes an "opportunity cost" method is also used: in this case, statisticians estimate how much women could earn in a paid job, if they were not doing unpaid housework.[148]Robert Eisner estimated that the market value of unpaid housework in money terms was equivalent to about 33% of the value of US GDP in 1981.[149]Nancy Folbre provides more recent comparative data.[150]
When she was the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde reportedly claimed at an IMF/World Bank annual meeting in Tokyo (October 2012) that women could rescue Japan's stagnating economy, if more of them took paid jobs instead of doing unpaid care work. A 2010 Goldman Sachs report had calculated that Japan's GDP would rise by 15 percent, if the participation of Japanese women in the paid labor force was increased from 60 percent to 80 percent, matching that of men.[151]
However, domestic and care work would still need to be done by someone, meaning that either women and men would need to share household responsibilities more equally, or that parents would have to rely on childcare and eldercare supplied by paid caregivers from the public sector, or from the private sector (nursemaids, au pairs, nannies, domestic helpers etc.). Many mothers don't care about a GDP number from a statistics office, they care about their children, and do not want to outsource their parenting. With a greying population, the economy will need more children that can replace retired workers in the future; that makes raising children properly a priority (particularly in the first five years of life). The majority of young people with young children cannot afford to hire caregivers themselves, and would have to rely on young volunteers or low-paid assistants.[152]
According to later IMF data, the female "labor-force participation rate" for paid work in Japan did rise from 63 percent in 2012 to 74 percent in 2023,[153] but estimates of the added contribution to GDP were not very large at all.[154] The explanation is most probably that while many Japanese women do work in paid jobs, they often work part-time or in non-regular jobs, with lower pay and shorter hours; in Japan there is still a large gender pay gap[155]). According to the OECD Gender Dashboard, Japan’s gender pay gap slightly widened from 21.3% in 2022 to 22% in 2023, while the OECD average stabilised around 11%. As a result, Japan ranks 35th out of 36 OECD countries in terms of pay equity.[156]
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), about 75.6 million domestic workers are employed in the world, mostly women and migrants, representing 4.5% of all workers (among every 22 workers, one worker is a domestic worker). In terms of their social status, domestic workers remain largely "undervalued, underprotected, and underrepresented". In 2021, the ILO estimated that 81% of all domestic workers were "informally" employed.[157] They are mainly servants of wealthy people and the professional middle classes.
Leftwing criticism
The laments and revolts of women about their domestic role have a very lengthy history, but the modern theoretical discourse about women’s unpaid household labour originated among the European, British, and North American Left at the beginning of the 1970s,[158] and it was subsequently adopted by triple oppression theory, liberal-progressivíst feminism, and academic social justice wokism,[159] becoming a mainstream theme in academic sociology, social statistics and labour history.
The leftwing criticisms of SNA concepts are mainly that:
SNA aggregates hide the labour-exploitation of the workers and farmers who produce the world's wealth, as well as obscuring the incomes from various types of profits and their sources.
SNA aggregates hide the sources and growth of economic inequality[160] among the social classes of a country and between countries, in terms of disparities in income, wealth and consumption.[161]
Some of the accounting concepts used in SNA are (allegedly) unreal, incoherent, misleading or non-observable (and therefore scientifically not verifiable or provable). For example, the measures of capital services, housing services and the incomes of the financial sector.
To make better sense of the economy in the real world, a different theoretical perspective on the new value added or value product and on capital accumulation is needed, and the official statistics need to be re-aggregated, contextualized and combined with other data.[162]
The distinctions drawn in SNA to define income from production and property income are rather capricious or eclectic, obscuring thereby the different components and sources of realized surplus value (profit, interest, rent, tax, fees, royalties, honorariums, certain net capital gains and subsidy receipts); the categories are said to be based on an inconsistent view of newly created value, conserved value, and transferred value.
The SNA aggregate "compensation of employees" does not make explicit pre-tax and post-tax wage income, the income of higher corporate officers and profit sharing, deferred income (employee and employer contributions to social insurance and retirement schemes) and other labour costs. The concept of "Compensation of employees" would suggest that workers' total income is equal to the labour cost of their employers. It may also include the value of stock options received as income by corporate officers. Government expenditure on social transfers (social wage income) by type is recorded in the accounts, but the recipients are invisible. Thus, it is argued, the SNA accounts have to be substantially re-aggregated, to obtain a true picture of workers incomes generated and distributed in the economy.
In SNA-type accounts there is lack of integrated statistical information about the financial sector (banking, investment finance, funds management, insurance and real estate) and a lack of interest in stock-flow consistent accounting. Even US government statisticians admit frankly that "Unfortunately, the finance sector is one of the more poorly measured sectors in national accounts".[163] The financial sector is nowadays the biggest player in international transactions, and strongly influences the developmental path of the world economy, through international financing/directing investment and through assets/funds management. Yet oddly it is precisely this leading sector in the world economy for which systematic, regular, comprehensive, and comparable data sets are not available. The appetite for data by the financial sector itself is far greater than its supply.[164]
When the SNA core accounts were originally created, their design was heavily influenced by the Keynesian economics of demand management for which they were supposed to provide metrics and indicators.[165] But this design is now regarded as outdated, because (i) the structure of the economy today is very different from what it was in Keynes's time, (ii) there are many new groups of SNA data users, and (iii) data needs and data use have changed. It is true that SNA has revised the designs, and added new modules across time to provide for new possible measures for new variables, but the basic SNA structure still remains the same, and is rarely questioned.
One result of the SNA accounting concepts is that the true profit income is understated in the production account – since true profit income in a country is larger than operating surplus[166] – while workers' earnings are overstated, since the production account shows the total labor costs to the employer rather than the "factor income" which workers actually receive. If one is interested in what incomes workers – the people who produce the wealth – actually get, how much they own, or how much they borrow, national accounts may not provide the required information or a disaggregate analysis is necessary to find that out.
SNA statisticians acknowledge that alternative measures of gross product, income/expenditure, capital accounts and external transactions accounts are possible. However, they would emphasize that considerable opportunities exist for researchers to reaggregate/rework existing official statistics, to create their own alternative measures for their own analyses and interpretations. Examples of an alternative approach are Alan Freeman's Marxist national accounts group[167] and the socialist Distributional National Accounts (DINA) framework pioneered by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman.[168] The DINA approach combines tax records, household survey data and national accounts data, to show the real distribution of national income for different income groups.[169] In the DINA design, the sum of individual incomes aligns with standard SNA macroeconomic aggregates, providing a consistent and comprehensive picture of income distribution. The SNA 2025 manual provides a more detailed conceptual structure to account for the transactions of labour and employment, and it creates the option for satellite labour accounts. Future SNA satellite accounts may address some of the leftwing concerns raised, via satellite accounts, on topics such as labor inputs, income distribution and activities of the financial sector.
Green criticism
Originally, SNA was designed to provide standard, internationally comparable measures for magnitudes and changes in national income, output, spending, capital formation and external trade. All of these indicators are essential to understand the causes and patterns of economic growth, and to provide insight about economic trends. However, that approach is now often deemed to be inadequate (and for some, totally wrongheaded - see for example degrowth), because it leaves out crucial variables, such as environmental variables which impact on the whole economy.[170]
The technical debates about the inclusion of environmental variables in SNA accounts have carried on for half a century. Nowadays a very large scientific literature exists about the subject.[171] However, for many years it proved difficult to reach (i) a workable international consensus about (ii) a feasible SNA methodology for (iii) creating meaningful environmental accounts – (iv) standard SNA accounts which would be both (v) useful and (vi) internationally comparable (keeping in mind the great diversity of environmental conditions in 200+ different countries and territories). Given that a very large amount of data is already being collected about the environment, the central issue became what specific contribution SNA accounting could usefully make.
Ten sorts of environmentalist criticisms have been made of alleged deficiencies in SNA accounts.[172] Most of the criticisms were about things that were traditionally not accounted for by SNA, but which (it was argued) ought to be accounted for as a standard procedure.
In general, SNA traditionally did not account for most of natural environment (the land, the seas and oceans, the polar ice caps, the biosphere, and the atmosphere) which contains and supports the whole economy, and from which resources are extracted.[173]
SNA’s approach to the valuation of goods, services and assets did not recognize that many environmental variables require a different valuation approach, or a different cost/benefit approach with a different logic.
SNA did not account for the value of many environmental functions and ecosystem services which provide essential supports for human production, consumption and habitats.
SNA did not include environmental "externalities" (such as the social costs of pollution) as part of the economy, so that national accounts overstate the net benefits of economic activity for enterprises as against true costs for communities.
SNA did not explicitly account for the costs that result from environmental degradation, and the costs of recovery from environmental damage.
SNA lacked standard satellite accounts which link economic activity to physical resource flows, pollution impacts, and ecosystem changes.
SNA’s concept of value did not include cultural values or any other valuations than what can be expressed in money-units. Spiritual and social dimensions of nature are absent in SNA reports, which are not designed for such topics.
In general, SNA (allegedly) sends out the wrong message about the macroeconomic future for humanity, if it does not account properly for the natural environment (the latter which contains the economy, and is a primary source of its wealth).
Each of these ten concerns was elaborated and debated in much more detail by many different researchers.[174] However, dealing with this large international scientific discussion goes beyond the scope of this article.[175] Simply said, across the last half century, the SNA framework has gradually recognized environmental concepts and methods of environmental accounting, and integrated them in the SNA accounting framework. But even if the concepts are now present, there may not be complete agreement ýet about the appropriate measurement techniques to obtain empirical estimates for the concepts. The development of SNA environmental accounting standards can be briefly sketched as follows:
SNA 1968 did not yet recognize environmental accounting within the SNA framework. Natural capitaldepletion, environmental degradation, and pollution were still disregarded by the official accounting system. At that time, critics of SNA 1968 highlighted the inconsistency in economic theory between the approach to human-made capital assets and the approach to stocks of natural resources, the latter which seemed to have zero value, because as non-produced, non-financial assets they were not accounted for prior to their extraction and sale.[176]
SNA 1993 for the first time introduced the idea of environmental accounting via the creation of satellite accounts. After the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the new System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) was adopted. Chapter XXI of the 1993 SNA manual gave attention to the design of separate environmental-economic accounts as a way to extend analytical capacity, without altering the core SNA accounts.[177] The environmental satellite accounts would show the interactions between the environment and the economy, using concepts and classifications consistent with SNA. SNA 1993 proposed the explicit inclusion of natural resources (such as land, mineral deposits, and subsoil assets) in SNA asset and accumulation accounts. The concept of net domestic product adjusted for resource depletion (“EDP”) was also introduced, although it was not formally included in the SNA framework. It was recommended, that environmental degradation and environmental maintenance costs should be accounted for, to enable the calculation of environmental adjustments to the value of standard economic aggregates. In this way, the 1993 SNA provided the first basis for standard, integrated environmental-economic accounting, leading directly to the development of SEEA as a recognized global standard.[178]
SNA 2008 formally recognized satellite accounts for environmental-economic topics (including material flow accounts, emission and pollution accounts, and energy accounts) and encouraged the use of the parallel System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) for detailed environmental accounting. Natural resources were recognized as economic assets (e.g., subsoil assets, land, mineral resources). The SEEA Central Framework was officially adopted as a UN standard by the UNSC at its 43rd session in February 2012. However, there was not yet any provision for the comprehensive treatment of natural capital or ecosystem services.[179]
SNA 2025 formally recognizes the concepts of natural capital[180] and ecosystem services; it expands the natural asset classifications covering biological resources, mineral and energy resources, and the atmosphere. Depletion of natural resources is now recorded as a production cost, explicitly stated in accumulation and balance sheet accounts. New principles are introduced for classifying different resource rents, identifying rents accruing to legal owners of resources (often governments) and extracting enterprises. Improved classifications for environmental exchanges and reporting are adopted, which enables natural resource transactions and flows to be made more visible in core accounts. The accounting approach to emissions trading schemes, pollution tax, and environmental liabilities (including potential treatment for negative asset values and provisions) is updated. Depletion-adjusted net measures and net wealth calculations methods are provided which are consistent with SNA ownership concepts. There are also new sectoring and classification rules for natural resource ownership, use of resources, and government roles in resource management.
What SNA environmental accounting concretely involves for an NSO, is usefully described for example in a recent text on the subject by Statistics New Zealand.[181] It is quite possible that many environmentalists will still not be satisfied with the worldwide efforts of SNA statisticians, and that environmentalist criticism of SNA hasn't finished yet (see also greenwashing). Nevertheless there is substantial evidence that a lot of scientific progress has been made across half a century to create standard accounting methods for natural resources. Not all the measurement issues have been resolved yet, but international discussion/consultation is continuing.[182] At least a basic SNA accounting framework for environmental variables now exists.[183]
It remains to be seen to what extent NSO's across the world will include SEEA in their national statistics as a standard practice.[184] Environmental accounting is in principle optional for UN member countries, although in Europe, NSO's are required by EU regulations to compile a few specific modules in SEEA, as a standard practice.[185] Most high-income countries began to compile SEEA accounts in the 2010s.[186] In early 2025, at least 94 countries had created “at least one SEEA account” within the last five years. Of these 94 countries, 67 countries are said to be compiling and publishing at least one SEEA account "regularly".[187]
Statisticians' critical views
Statisticians have commented on the limitations of international comparisons using national accounts data, on the ground that in the real world, the SNA estimates are rarely compiled in a truly uniform way – despite appearances to the contrary. People often assume that the data are "precisely accurate", although the data may only be a "best estimate" under the given conditions, or "approximately true" and "indicative". It can happen that the reported percentage change in a macroeconomic variable is equal to the possible margin of error in the statistical estimates for that variable. There is often little official transparency about data errors in national accounts.[188]
Jochen Hartwig once provided evidence to show that "the divergence in growth rates [of real GDP] between the U.S. and the EU since 1997 can be explained almost entirely in terms of changes to deflation methods that have been introduced in the U.S. after 1997, but not – or only to a very limited extent – in Europe".[189] According to Steve McFeely, the chief statistician of the OECD,
“As of 2022, the UN Statistics Division reported that only two thirds of countries worldwide had implemented the 2008 SNA guidelines… posing uncomfortable questions as to what it really means to adopt a statistical standard… only about half of all countries compile their GDP estimates using all three (income, expenditure, and production) approaches. Moreover, only a selection of countries currently compile comprehensive balance sheets that include non-produced non-financial assets, such as natural resources.”[190]
The "magic" of national accounts is, that they provide an instant source of detailed international comparisons.[191] However, critics argue that, on closer inspection, the numbers are often not really so comparable as they are made out to be. The practical result is, that all sorts of easy comparisons are tossed around by policy scientists, which, if the technical story behind the numbers was told, would never be attempted, because the comparisons are scientifically not credible. Had there been better education in the use of economic data, a lot of controversies would probably have been resolved quickly, or they would not occur. The counterargument is, that because countries are applying the same statistical standards and concepts, this already makes an enormous positive difference to data comparability. This positive difference far outweighs the effects of remaining methodological discrepancies in the data of different countries.
SNA data producers do not have control over how SNA data will be used. National statistics offices only control what information is released, and when it is released. They act in accordance with a legal framework, and follow directives from the government officials in charge. The data can be used for purposes which are not valid, or used for purposes which the data were never meant to serve.[192] That is not the fault of SNA producers, but a matter of data awareness, statistical literacy and data user education.[193]
Both the strengths and the weaknesses of national accounts are, that they are based on an enormous variety of data sources. The strength consists in the fact that a lot of cross-checking between data sources and data sets can occur, to assess the credibility of the estimates for the bigger picture. In each account, things do have to "add up" correctly, and the different accounts have to be mutually consistent. The weakness is, that the sheer number of inferences made in compiling data sets increases the possibility of data errors, and can make it more difficult to trace the causes of errors.
SNA data quality has been criticized, on the ground that what pretends to be "economic data" may involve extrapolated estimates using mathematical models, and not direct observations. These econometric models are designed (sometimes with great ingenuity) to predict what particular data values ought to be, based on sample data for "indicative trends". One can, for example, observe that if variables X, Y, and Z go up, then variable P will go up as well, in a specific proportion. In that case, one may not need to survey P or its components directly, it is sufficient to get available trend data for X, Y, and Z and feed them into a mathematical model, which then predicts what the values for P will be at each interval of time; at a later stage, the estimates from the model can be checked for their accuracy against relevant new data when it becomes available.
Because statistical surveys can be costly or difficult to organize, or because the data has to be produced quickly to meet a deadline,[194] statisticians often try to find cheaper, faster, and more efficient methods to produce the data. They make use of inferences from data that they already have, or from selected data which they can get more easily. Sometimes this procedure can be proved to supply accurate data successfully. But the purist objection to this approach is often that there is a loss in data accuracy and data quality.
The extrapolated estimates may lack a solid empirical basis, and the tendency is for fluctuations in the magnitudes of variables to be "smoothed out" by the estimation or interpolation procedure.
An unusual, very large and sudden fluctuation in a variable (caused for example by a pandemic such as Covid-19) may be difficult to predict by a mathematical model, because the model's descriptions assume the future trend will conform to the law of averages and the patterns of the past. An unusual pattern could initially be regarded as a "data error", although it is later concluded that it was real. The statisticians may not be able to track down and prove why an unusual fluctuation occurred, and adjust the figures according to the "most likely hypothesis".
Without sufficient observational data from direct surveys and real records, many of the statistical inferences made are not truly verifiable. All one can then say about the estimates is, that they are "probably fairly accurate, given previous and other concurrent data."
Statisticians do admit that data errors and inaccuracies are possible, it is an occupational risk and a challenge. It would be preferable to have comprehensive survey data available as a basis for estimation. But they would argue that it is usually possible to find estimation techniques that keep margins of error within acceptable bounds. The real problem may be, that errors can be corrected only quite some time after the publication deadline, in the light of fresh data or additional data.
The 2024/2025 budgetary crisis of the United Nations has an impact on statistical work across the UN (cutbacks in staffing and technical assistance services; project delays and the shelving of flagship projects; data quality risks; insufficient funding for reporting, classification upgrades, and outreach), and that affects the entire global statistical community.[195] If governments refuse to pay for the production of high quality statistics with qualified staff, statisticians can only do what they are able to do, with the techniques they have. Imperfect statistics may be better to have, than no statistics at all. In the future, digital technology and artificial intelligence will most likely make the production of economic statistics easier, cheaper, faster and better.[196] In particular, artificial intelligence can potentially provide much faster data error detection. However, artificial intelligence is not a panacea and it may introduce new errors in information systems: “Hundreds of Wikipedia articles may contain AI-generated errors. Editors are working around the clock to stamp them out.”[197]
Criticism can always be made of national accounts statistics, and that will probably continue.[198] SNA statisticians make criticisms themselves, although they may not do so publicly (because they lack authorization to do so). However, in the end people do want to have comparable macroeconomic data, to understand the proportions and magnitudes of an economic situation. This macroeconomic data has to be supplied according to deadlines. When it is published, it can have a strong effect on investment decisions, business activity and government policy. So NSO's and international suppliers of economic statistics are always under pressure to provide data of the highest possible quality, always on time.[199]
If data users are not satisfied with the data they get, they may be able to create their own data sets, starting out from publicly available information supplied by statistical agencies. Behind the published statistical totals, there also exist databases, archives and registers with more detailed information used to compile the totals. With appropriate authorization, it may sometimes be possible to obtain extra data and more detailed information. Usually the NSO staff is willing to help,[200] within the constraints of the relevant laws and rules, and professional protocols. A great advantage of modern digital technology and digital data storage is, that data users are in principle no longer restricted to just one set of published official SNA accounts - it is possible for specialists with a specific research purpose to generate many account variants (or alternative accounts), by reaggregating, rearranging and recalculating SNA data in a spreadsheet.
↑ The name-change from "United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA)" to "System of National Accounts (SNA)" occurred during the f1993 revision of the SNA. Other major international organizations — the OECD, IMF, World Bank, and Eurostat — had become significantly involved in the development, revision, and dissemination of the SNA.
↑ "The System of National Accounts (SNA) is the internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity in accordance with strict accounting conventions based on economic principles. The recommendations are expressed in terms of a set of concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules that comprise the internationally agreed standard for measuring such items as gross domestic product (GDP), the most frequently quoted indicator of economic performance." SNA 2025, chapter 1, para. 1.3.
↑ There exist many other producers of economic statistics in society. For example, specific government organizations, banks, large corporations, industry institutes, scientific institutes, and stock exchanges. However, these organizations do not necessarily use international standards for their own data. Insofar as SNA statisticians make use of their data, this data may have to be adjusted to conform to the applicable SNA standards.
↑ “Integrated” means that all accounts and subaccounts in the system are mutually consistent/compatible; “complete” means that SNA in principle covers all types of economic activity in a country (although some economic activities may contingently be difficult to measure); "up-to-date" means that SNA tries to respond to current perceptions of data needs and creates concepts & methods to account for new economic phenomena, and economic phenomena that were not previously included in SNA.
↑ United Nations,A System of National Accounts and Supporting Tables, Studies in Methods, Series F No 2 Rev. 1, New York, 1953.
↑ "System of National Accounts". United Nations. Retrieved 16 February 2023. For a brief historical summary of the revisions, see e.g. the relevant section in the manuals System of National Accounts 1993 and System of National Accounts 2008
↑ The SNA 2025 manual (1200+ pages, almost twice as big as the SNA 2008 manual with 662 pages) is available only in its pre-edit form. United Nations Statistical Commission, Report on the fifty-sixth session (4–7 March 2025), Economic and Social Council Official Records, 2025, Supplement No. 4.Introducing the System of National Accounts 2025; a powerpoint overview of the changes in SNA 2025 is provided in: Peter van de Ven, “The General Outline of the 2025 SNA”, Towards the 2025 SNA seminar, Group of Experts on National Accounts, Geneva, 25 – 27 April 2023. An overview of the changes in SNA 2025 can only be provided when the final SNA 2025 text is published.
↑ For example, the different task teams behind the SNA 2025 revision are listed in the Towards the 2025 SNA document, on the UNSD site.
↑ UNSD provides a list of affiliated national statistics offices in the world.. In the European Union, “national statistics offices” (NSO’s) are called “national statistical institutes” (NSI’s). Eurostat provides a country list for National statistical institutes (NSI) and other national authorities in the EU, but not with contact information.
↑ There is no scientific evidence or case that SNA is a “totalitarian system” seeking to force a certain ideology on the public, or that it is a “conspiracy for world domination”. Anyone can access SNA data, and interpret it according to their own choices, beliefs and concerns, although economists are trained to use the data in appropriate ways. What SNA offers, is an agreed set of standard concepts, methods, measures and a common language, as a tool used to interpret and compare the economies of the world. For recent insights about the international politics of the SNA endeavour, see: Daniel Joseph Derock, The politics of global statistical harmonization. Phd thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2022. A broad critical-historical appraisal of the social accounting endeavour and its methods is available in: Rodney Edvinsson, An Economic Philosophy of Production, Work and Consumption: A Transhistorical Framework. Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, 2023.
↑ If for example a government requests a loan from a foreign creditor, this creditor needs economic data to judge (1) the capacity to repay the debt, (2) what the sovereign credit risks are, and (3) on what terms the loan could be granted. Sovereign credit ratings are influenced by economic data reports, so the data has to be available.
↑ The legal obligation for EU member states to use ESA standards for compiling national accounts is established by EU Regulation No. 549/2013, on ESA 2010. This regulation is immediately binding in all EU member states under Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
↑ European Commission, Questions and Answers: European System of Accounts 2010. Brussels, 16 January 2014.
↑ Stephan Haggard, Kyoochul Kim, and Munseob Lee, “Studying Economic Black Holes: Lessons from North Korea”. San Diego: University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working paper 4, July 2025.
↑ Peter Ward, “Material balance planning and the North Korean economy under Kim II Sung”, pp. 78-84 in Adrian Buzo (ed.), Routledge handbook of contemporary North Korea. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021.
↑ Vincent Koen & Jinwoan Beom, “North Korea: the last transition economy?”. OECD Economics Department Working Paper no. 1607. Paris: OECD, 25 November 2020, pp. 1-47, at p. 6-7
↑ See UNdata search. and Chan Young Bang, “Why and How Estimates of North Korean GDP by the Bank of Korea Are Deceptive”, 38 North: News and Analysis on North Korea (Stimson Center, Washington DC), 27 Nov 2024.
↑ OECD, “Organisational structure” The OECD has 38 member states (mainly industrialized, post-industrial and developed countries) which account for around half of global net output. The OECD assists economic reforms in more than a hundred countries. It regularly publishes economic reports for member countries and makes a big contribution to developing standard statistical and econometric methodologies.
↑ UNCTAD, Towards a Statistical Framework for the measurement of tax and commercial Illicit Financial Flows. New York: United Nations, 2024.; UNODC, Conceptual framework for the statistical measurement of illicit financial flows. Vienna and Geneva: UNODC/UNCTAD, October 2020.
↑ Jane Gleeson-White, Double entry: how the merchants of Venice created modern finance. London: Allen & Unwin, 2012, chapter 1, pp. 12 and 20.
↑ Frits Bos, "Meaning and measurement of national accounts statistics". Paper discussed at the World Economics Association’s Conference on the Political Economy of Economic Metrics, 28 January-25 February 2013.
↑ Richard Stone, Some British Empiricists in the social sciences 1650-1900. Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 26-31.
↑ Richard Stone, Some British Empiricists in the social sciences 1650-1900. Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 147-150.
↑ Paul Studenski, The Income of Nations; Theory, Measurement, and Analysis: Past and Present. New York: New York University Press, 1958; M. Yanovsky, Anatomy of Social Accounting Systems. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1965; W.F.M. de Vries (ed.), The value added of national accounting. Voorburg: Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics, 1993; Zoltan Kenessey (ed.), The Accounts of Nations, Amsterdam IOS, 1994; Andre Vanoli, A History of National Accounting, IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2005; Frits Bos, The national accounts as a tool for analysis and policy: in view of history, economic theory and data compilation issues (2nd edition). Amsterdam, VDP publishers, January 2009; Frits Bos, "The History of National Accounting". Voorburg, Netherlands: Central Bureau of Statistics, National accounts occasional paper No. 48, 1992..
↑ Paul Studenski, The Income of Nations. New York: New York University Press, 1958, p. 151. “The Income of Nations by Paul Studenski”. Review by Alvin E. Coons, in:Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 8, No. 3, April 1960, pp. 322-328.
↑ Paul Studenski, The Income of Nations. New York: New York University Press, 1958, p. 457. Historical series of national income estimates for Britain since the mid-19th century are provided in C.H. Feinstein, National income, expenditure and output of the United Kingdom 1855-1965. Cambridge University Press, 1972.
↑ Vito Tanzi & Ludger Schuknecht, Public spending in the 20th century: a global perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2000. “…while GDP is supposed to measure the value of output of goods and services, in one key sector — government — we typically have no way of doing it, so we often measure the output simply by the inputs. If government spends more — even if inefficiently — output goes up.” Joseph E. Stiglitz, “GDP fetishism”. New York: The Economists' Voice, September 2009.
↑ SNA-sourced comparative data on international transactions (imports/exports, investment, remittances, transfers and payments) is provided especially by the IMF, OECD, World Bank and UNCTAD.
↑ Kim Zieschang (IMF Statistics Department), “SNA 2008: an essential tool for economic policy and monitoring”. Module I of Joint Meeting of Experts on National Accounts United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Geneva April 30, 2012.
↑ Luca Di Gennaro Splendore, “Democracy Dies in Darkness without Official Statistics”. UNECE Workshop on Ethics in Modern Statistical Organisations, 26-28 March 2024, Geneva, Switzerland.
↑ Robert C. Feenstra, Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, “The Next Generation of the Penn World Table”. American Economic Review, Vol. 105, Issue 10, 2015, pp. 3150–3182; Angus Maddison, “Measuring and Interpreting World Economic Performance 1500–2001.” Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 51, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1–36; Jutta A. Bolt and Jan Luiten van Zanden, “The Maddison Project: Collaborative Research on Historical National Accounts.” The Economic History Review, Vol. 67, no. 3, August 2014, pp. 627–651.
↑ Legal frameworks are not explained in the SNA manuals, but both national statistics offices and intergovernmental organizations have their own legal frameworks and professional protocols for the production of national accounts statistics.
↑ There are also downloadable pdf introductions to SNA (periodically revised) which are published by national statistics offices and by international organizations, e.g. François Lequiller & Derek Blades, ‘’Understanding National Accounts’’, 2nd edition. Paris: OECD 2014.
↑ For example, in France, the National Accounts Directorate within INSEE has a core staff of 60 employees who compile the SNA accounts, but it coordinates about 175 national accountants inside and outside INSEE. There are another 2,000 statistics officers employed in the Ministries. Data sets are supplied to INSEE by the Banque de France (financial sector statistics, including insurance, pensions, and funds management); the Ministry of Finance (government finance statistics); the Customs Office (international trade statistics); the Social Security Collection Agency (social contributions and benefits data); the Ministry of Agriculture Statistical Service (agricultural production and farm accounts); the Ministry of Health (health expenditure and consumption statistics); and the Ministry of Ecology (environmental accounts and energy balances). In China, the Department of National Accounts of the National Bureau of Statistics works together with a large number of other departments and centers which supply or transform data, see: About the National Bureau of Statistics of China, 4 January 2007 and Organizational Chart 2022.
↑ UNECE, Data Stewardship and the Role of National Statistical Offices in the New Data Ecosystem (April, 2024).
↑ Example: in theory, the distinction between owning and leasing productive capital assets in SNA should not affect the value of total GDP. But in practice, a significant shift to leasing productive capital assets instead of owning the assets tends to raise measured GDP somewhat, while a shift toward owning productive capital assets instead of leasing them tends to lower GDP.
↑ Bulletin by the National Bureau of Statistics of China on the Revision of Annual GDP Data for 2023, December 28, 2024.
↑ Included are resident foreign-controlled financial and non-financial corporations and banks (with at least 50% of voting power held by the foreign parent company), diplomatic enclaves, embassies, consulates, military bases, and other legally recognized foreign units. Enterprises in a Special Economic Zone are usually not counted as "foreign" institutional units, but as part of the domestic economy.
↑ BPM7/2025 SNA Implementation Strategy. IMF Statistics Department Discussion Paper BOPCOM—24/05, Forty-Fourth Meeting of the IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics, Washington, D.C. November 5–7, 2024.
↑ Handbook on Supply and Use Tables and Input-Output Tables with Extensions and Applications. New York: UN Statistics Division, 2018.
↑ See the ESA 2010 Manual, chapter 9 and ESA 2010 Transmission programme of data (Eurostat/Annex B to Reg. 549/2013)..
↑ "Satellite Accounts in the Framework of National Accounts: Methodological and Practical Issues". OECD Statistics Working Paper 2001/3. Paris: OECD, 2001, p. 13. See also: Maryvonne Lemaire, "Satellite Accounts: A Relevant Framework for Analysis in Social Fields". In: The Review of Income and Wealth,'Series 33, Number 3, September 1987, pp. 305-326.
↑ F. Lequiller & D. Blades, Understanding National Accounts (2nd ed.). Paris: OECD, 2014, p. 505.
↑ J.S. Landefeld, B.R. Moulton, B.R., & C.M. Vojtech, “Satellite Accounts: Improving the SNA Framework for Analysis”. In Carol Corrado, John Haltiwanger & Daniel Sichel (eds.), Measuring Capital in the New Economy. University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 9–34 at p. 11.
↑ In 1982, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was given the mandate to develop methodological guidelines on environmental accounting. By 1989, it became clear that, given the lack of international consensus, a fundamental change in the SNA was not possible. Instead, it was resolved that a satellite account for integrated economic and environmental accounting would be pursued. See: "Integrated Economic and Environmental Satellite Accounts". Survey of Current Business, April 1994, pp. 33-49, at pp. 36-37.
↑ J.S. Landefeld, B.R. Moulton, B.R., & C.M. Vojtech, “Satellite Accounts: Improving the SNA Framework for Analysis”. In Carol Corrado, John Haltiwanger & Daniel Sichel (eds.), Measuring Capital in the New Economy. University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 9–34, at p. 10–12.
↑ SNA 1993, p. 508; Statistics Canada briefing, Satellite Accounting in Canada, July 28, 2020.
↑ Peter van de Ven, “Developing thematic satellite accounts. The example of a thematic satellite account for transport”. OECD Statistics Working Papers, 2021/02. See also: W. Alfred Maul, Household Satellite Accounts: Experiences in OECD Countries. Paris: OECD Statistics Directorate, 2005.
↑ Review of Satellite Accounting, SNA/M1.19/5.2 13th Meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts, 1-3 October 2019, Washington D.C., USA, Agenda item: 5.2.
↑ Handbook on Satellite Accounts. Paris: OECD, 2020, p. 9.
↑ James Tebrake, “The role of satellite accounting in expanding the System of National Accounts”. Eurostat Review on National Accounts and Macroeconomic Indicators (EURONA) 2020, pp. 53-76.
↑ As Eurostat puts it: “The accounts are based on a wide variety of often-conflicting and incomplete data sources, which must be reconciled in multiple dimensions to achieve a fully balanced set of detailed accounts. To deal with this, national accountants need a broad knowledge, good judgement and strong commitment to working closely with data suppliers.” Eurostat, Statistics explained: national accounts background 2025.
↑ Frits Bos, “Compiling the national accounts demystified”. National accounts occasional paper, nr. NA-95. Voorburg: Statistics Netherlands, 2007.
↑ See e.g. Alexandra Fernandes, The non-observed economy in the national accounts. An update and the link with the undeclared economy (University of Louvain, Belgium). Presented at the 24th Meeting of the Group of Experts on National Accounts, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 8-10 April 2025 (powerpoint) and Alexandra Fernandes, “The non-observed economy in the national accounts: New evidence for EU and EFTA Member States”. In: Economic Analysis and Policy, Volume 86, June 2025, pp. 137-164.
↑ 2013/21. Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. Resolution adopted by the Economic and Social Council, United Nations, 24 July 2013. E/RES/2013/21 28 October 2013.
↑ The Hong Kong social accounts, usually known as the "Hong Kong National Accounts" are produced by the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong government (the first official accounts were published in 1973 and follow SNA guidelines).
↑ UN Department of international economic and social affairs, Statistical office, Basic principles of the System of Balances of the National Economy. Studies in Methods, Series F, no. 17, ST/STAT/ser. F/2/17. New York: United Nations, 1971; UN Department of international economic and social affairs, Statistical office, Comparisons of the system of national accounts and the system of balances of the national economy (2 Volumes). Studies in methods. Series F / Statistical Office, ISSN 0498-014X; no. 20. New York: United Nations, 1977-8; National Accounts and Balances: Links Between the System of National Accounts (SNA) and the System of Balances of the National Economy (MPS), E/CN.3/1985/6. A paper for the 23rd session of the U.N. Statistical Commission, 1985; UN Department of international economic and social affairs, Statistical office, Basic methodological principles governing the compilation of the system of statistical balances of the national economy, Volumes 1 and 2. Studies in Methods, Series F, no. 17, rev. 1, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.F/rev.1. New York: United Nations, 1989.
↑ ESA was established by European Community, Council Regulation nr. 2223/96 of 25 June 1996, on the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community (ESA 95), OJ L 310, 30.11.1996, pp. 1–469.
↑ EU Regulation nr. 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (21 May 2013) on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (known as the ESA 2010 Regulation, nr. OJ L 174, 26.6.2013, pp. 1–727. The first initiative in this direction was by the Council of the European Communities, Decision 79/833/EEC of 16 October 1979 on the European System of Integrated Economic Accounts (ESA 1979, OJ L 318, 09/12/1979, pp. 0027–0058) establishing one collective system of accounts.
↑ See: European System of Accounts, ESA 2010. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013.
↑ For the historical background, see e.g. Robert William Fogel et al., Political Arithmetic. Simon Kuznets and the empirical tradition in econometrics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. A standard national accounting system had been in development since a report to the US Senate in 1934, based on the results of initial studies of US national income. At its eighth session held in April 1939, the UN Committee of Statistical Experts had officially decided to create global standards for national accounts (as had previously been recommended in 1928). Standards for banking accounts and balance of payments accounts were also to be created. However, the activities of the UN Committee were interrupted by World War 2 (1939-1945) and only resumed in December 1945 with its Princeton conference. The UN approach taken was “no radical innovation, but a logical development of recent investigations in the field of national income” — Richard Stone et al., Measurement of national income and the social accounts. Report of the Sub-committee on National Income Statistics of the League of Nations Committee of Statistical Experts. Geneva: United Nations, 1947, 116 pp., at p. 6, 8.
↑ Stephanie H. McCulla, Karin E. Moses, and Brent R. Moulton, "The National Income and Product Accounts and the System of National Accounts 2008. Comparison and Research Plans". Survey of Current Business, June 2025, pp. 1-17.
↑ Emeka Anyasi, "Nigeria’s economic blueprint reshaped through GDP rebasing." The Conclave (Abuja), 22 January 2025.
↑ UNECE online national accounts page with links and resources.
↑ Important documents include: ASEAN Framework on Regional National Accounts (ASEANstats, 2019); Guidelines on Compilation of Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP); and various training and technical manuals tailored to ASEAN needs.
↑ UNSD provides a list of affiliated national statistics offices in the world.. In the European Union, “national statistics offices” (NSO’s) are called “national statistical institutes” (NSI’s). Eurostat provides a country list for National statistical institutes (NSI) and other national authorities in the EU, but not with contact information.
↑ Compiling national accounts, balance-of-payments and foreign trade statistics in the framework of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) health emergency. Statistics Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), June 2020.
↑ Morten Jerven, Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2013.
↑ See the UNSD Country/Area List detailing entities for which national accounts data are collected. This list includes separate territories and regions beyond the UN's 193 member states.
↑ Kees Zeelenberg and Steven de Bie, “Trust and dissemination in official statistics”. Discussion paper 2012/20. The Hague/Heerlen: Statistics Netherlands, 2012; Evelyn Ruppert et al., “Citizen Data and Trust in Official Statistics”. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 2018, issue 505-506, pp. 171-184; Andrea Shalal and Davide Barbuscia, “Trust in US economic data on the line: Easy to lose, hard to restore”. Reuters, August 5, 2025.
↑ Vladimir Klyuev & James Tebrake, “New Standards for Economic Data Aim to Sharpen View of Global Economy”. IMF Blog, July 31, 2025; Glenn-Marie Lange, Quentin Wodon, and Kevin Carey (eds.). The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018. Building a Sustainable Future. Washington DC: World Bank, 2018.
↑ Steve MacFeely, “The Continuing Evolution of Official Statistics: Some Challenges and Opportunities.” Journal of Official Statistics, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2016, pp. 789–810
↑ See e.g. Yoshiko M. Herrera, Mirrors of the economy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010; Utz-Peter Reich, National Accounts and Economic Value: A Study in Concepts. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
↑ Fabrizio Antolini, "The Evolution of National Accounting and New Statistical Information: Happiness and Gross Domestic Product, Can We Measure It?". Social Indicators Research, Volume 129, October 2015, pp. 1075–1092.
↑ Robert Eisner, The Total Incomes System of Accounts. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
↑ Yolande Barnes et al., “World real estate accounts for 60% of all mainstream assets”, Savills Research, 25 January 2016. The main report is also available See also: Isabelle Fraser, "What is all the property in the world worth? The Telegraph (London), 24 January 2016. Shawn Langlois, "Some perspective on how real estate dwarfs the rest of the asset universe". MarketWatch, 25 January 2016.
↑ William R. White, "Measured wealth, real wealth and the illusion of saving" — Keynote speech, at the Irving Fisher Committee Conference on "Measuring the financial position of the household sector", Basel, 30–31 August 2006. In SNA, land values and the value of land sales fall outside the production boundary, and are therefore excluded from gross value-added and gross fixed capital formation. Land is not regarded as a produced good. Only the value of land improvements is included. Sometimes supplementary accounts are created for land values and trade in land. A measurement problem is that land and land sales are often not valued in a uniform way. For more information about the world's land, see e.g. Kevin Cahill and Rob McMahon, Who Owns the World? The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet. New York: Grand Central Publications/Hachette Book Group, 2010.
↑ See e.g. Lukas Linsi and Daniel K. Mügge, “Globalization and the growing defects of international economic statistics”. Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 361–383.
↑ United Nations, Principles governing international statistical activities. New York: United Nations, n.d. 2013/21. Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. Resolution adopted by the Economic and Social Council, United Nations, 24 July 2013. E/RES/2013/21 28 October 2013.; Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, Resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 January 2014 (A/RES/68/261); OECD, Recommendation on Good Statistical Practice, adopted by the OECD Council on 23 November 2015.; Report on the Implementation of the OECD Recommendation on Good Statistical Practice 2020. Paris: OECD Secretariat, 26 June 2020.; European Statistics Code of Practice — revised edition 2017; European statistics. Potential to further improve quality. ECA special report of the European Court of Auditors, 2020 (pursuant to Article 287(4), second subparagraph, TFEU); Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System. Brussels: Eurostat 2019.; Melissa Chiu and Jennifer Park (eds.) et al., Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency, Eighth Edition. Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2025.
↑ Luigi Di Razza, "Improving dissemination and communication of official statistics". Eurostat CROS (Collaboration in Research and Methodology for Official Statistics), 14 January 2025.
↑ Liberty Vittert, “The problem with official statistics – and three ways to make them better”. The Conversation, 18 September 2018.
↑ Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn't Add Up. The New Press, 2010; Joseph E. Stiglitz, “GDP Is the Wrong Tool for Measuring What Matters”, Scientific American online, August 1, 2020. Originally titled “Measuring What Matters”, in: Scientific American Magazine, Vol. 323 No. 2, August 2020, p. 24.
↑ See further Frits Bos, “Use, misuse and proper use of national accounts statistics”. National accounts occasional paper nr. NA-096. Voorburg/Heerlen: Statistics Netherlands, 2007.
↑ On 11 October 2007, a White House press release stated: "As a percentage of the economy, the deficit is now lower than the average of the last forty years." What it meant was: "The total US federal budget deficit, expressed as a percentage of GDP, is now lower than the percentage of GDP which this deficit represented on average across the last forty years."
↑ Anne Harrison, "W(h)ither the SNA?", in: Review of Income and Wealth, Series 63, Supplement 2, December 2017, pp. 208-222.; High-Level Committee on Programmes/Core Group on Beyond GDP, "Valuing What Counts - United Nations System-wide Contribution on Progress Beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP)". New York: United Nations, 17 August 2022.
↑ In 2022, the British statistics office proposed a new measure of “inclusive income”, to be supplied in gross and net terms. It is defined as “GDP plus the [value of] flows of additional wider economic benefits [obtained] from unpaid household service activity, the environment (natural capital), human capital, and the value of improved public service outcomes." — Richard Heys, “New ‘Beyond GDP’ measures for the UK: a workplan for measuring inclusive income”. UK Office for National Statistics briefing paper, 12 May 2022. and Richard Heys & Cliodhna Taylor, “Inclusive Income Accounts: Practical Measures to Go Beyond GDP.” Review of Income and Wealth, Volume 71, Issue 3, August 2025.
↑ Marilyn Waring, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth (1988). Reprinted in 1996 by Bridget Williams Books, New Zealand and republished by University of Toronto Press, 1999.
↑ Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. London: Zed Books, 1999.
↑ Lourdes Benería, “The Enduring Debate Over Unpaid Labour.” International Labour Review 138, no. 3, 1999, pp. 287–320.; Lourdes Benería, Gender, Development, and Globalization: Economics as if People Mattered. New York: Routledge, 2003.
↑ Nancy Folbre, “Valuing Unpaid Work Matters, Especially for the Poor”. New York Times, 21 September 2009; Greg Larson, “Nancy Folbre: Why we should all care more about the care economy”. Yale Economic Growth Center, 5 October 2023.
↑ That is, the market-rents which owner-occupiers would receive, if they rented out the housing they occupy. This imputation is nowadays often named "the value of housing services", which is a concept in neoclassical economics. Originally, the statistical reason for including this standard imputation in GDP was that there may exist big differences between countries with regard to the proportions of rented and owner-occupied housing. These differences (or major shifts in type of occupancy) can distort the comparisons of GDP data between countries. This statistical side-effect is neutralized by the imputation of rents, so that both rental and owner-occupied dwellings always generate (proportionate) rental income/expenditure. In SNA, mortgage payments are financial flows (property income), not production flows and therefore they are never included in the production account or in GDP. In SNA, tenant rents (real or imputed) are always defined as payments for "housing services" (which generate production income, not property income). If the imputed total rent rises, GDP growth will rise somewhat, and if the imputed rent decreases, GDP growth will fall somewhat in the production account.
↑ The “production boundary” defines which types of activities are included or are excluded from the accounts for the values of stocks and flows pertaining to production. Unpaid work within the household (e.g. cooking, cleaning, care-giving, gardening and maintenance), and items such as the natural growth of forest parks or the growth of fish populations in the open seas are excluded from production. See the SNA 2025 Glossary of macroeconomic terms and definitions. For academic comments, see: Nancy Folbre, “Care Provision and the Boundaries of Production”. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 38 No. 1, February 2024, pp. 201-220.
↑ Meg Luxton, "More Than a Labour of Love: Three Generations of Women's Work in the Home" [1980]. Toronto: Women's Press, 2009 reprint. Meg Luxton, "The UN, women, and household labour: Measuring and valuing unpaid work." Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 20 Issue 3, May–June 1997, pp. 431–439.
↑ Gaëlle Ferrant, Luca Maria Pesando and Keiko Nowacka, “Unpaid Care Work: The missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes”. Paris: OECD Development Centre, December 2014.
↑ J. Steven Landefeld & Stephanie H. McCulla, “Accounting for nonmarket household production within a national accounts framework”. Review of Income and Wealth, Volume 46, Issue 3, September 2000, pp. 289-307; J. Steven Landefeld, Barbara M. Fraumeni, Cindy M. Vojtech, “Accounting for household production: a prototype satellite account using the American time use survey”. Review of Income and Wealth, Volume 55, Issue 2, June 2009, Pages 205-225; Katharine G. Abraham and Christopher Mackie (eds.), Beyond the Market: Designing Nonmarket Accounts for the United States. Washington: The National Academies Press, 2005; Unpaid Household Service Work, Agenda item: 6.7, 14th Meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts, 5-9 October 2020 (SNA/M1.20/6.7).
↑ Berglind Hólm Ragnarsdóttir, Sarah Kostecki, Janet Gornick, “Accounting for the Value of Unpaid Domestic Work: A Cross-National Study of Variation across Household Types”. European Sociological Review, Volume 39, Issue 2, April 2023, pp. 262–279; SNA/M1.20/6.7, “Unpaid Household Service Work”, Agenda item: 6.7, 14th Meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts, 5-9 October 2020 (Virtual Meeting).; Daniel DeRock, “Unpaid Work and the Governance of GDP Measurement”. E-international relations, Jan 11 2019.
↑ Surajit Deb, “Unpaid Work in the SNA Revisions: Implications for the Care Economy”. (University of Delhi) Paper prepared for the 38th IARIW General Conference August 26-30, 2024, Session 2D-2, Unpaid Household Work, August 27, 2024 (PDF); Indira Hirway, “Unpaid work and the economy: Linkages and their implications”, Working Paper, No. 838, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, 2015 (PDF).
↑ Jacques Charmes, "The Unpaid Care Work and the Labour Market. An analysis of time use data based on the latest World Compilation of Time-use Surveys". International Labour Office, Geneva: ILO, 2019.; Daniel DeRock, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Unpaid Household Services and the Politics of GDP Measurement”. New Political Economy, 26(1), 2019.
↑ University of Maryland, “Annotated Bibliography: Paid and Unpaid Work.” UMD WEDGE Project.; Marga Bruyn-Hundt, The economics of unpaid work (Phd dissertation, Maastricht University). Amsterdam: Thesis Publishers, 1996.
↑ United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, “Guide on Valuing Unpaid Household Service Work.” Geneva: UNECE, 2018.; Household Accounting: Experience in Concepts and Compilation. Handbook of National Accounting, Studies in Methods, Series F, No. 75/Vol.2, Household Satellite Extensions. New York: United Nations, 2000.; Sue Holloway, Sandra Short & Sarah Tamplin, Household satellite account (experimental), UK Office for National Statistics, April 2002.; Household Production and Consumption Proposal for a Methodology of Household Satellite Accounts. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2003.; Satellite Account on Non-profit and Related Institutions and Volunteer Work. Handbook of National Accounting. Studies in Methods Series F, No. 91, Rev. 1. New York: United Nations, 2018.
↑ Amanda Sinclair & Sandy Besporstov, “Estimating the Economic Value of Unpaid Household Work in Canada, 2015 to 2019” (Paper prepared for the 37th IARIW General Conference August 22-26, 2022). Statistics Canada, March 2022.
↑ Nancy Folbre, “Valuing Non-market Work”. New York: UNDP Human Development Report Office, 2015.
↑ Harumi Ozawa, "Woman is Japan's secret economic weapon." Agence France-Presse, 23 November 2012.
↑ For a global overview, see: Laura Addati, Umberto Cattaneo, Valeria Esquivel and Isabel Valarino, Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work. Geneva: International Labour Office, June 2018; Rhea Crisologo Hernando, Unpaid Care and Domestic Work: Counting the Costs. Policy Brief No. 43, APEC Policy Support Unit. Singapore: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, March 2022.
↑ Rui Xu, “Japan’s Economy Would Gain With More Women in Science and Technology”. IMF News, 13 November 2023.
↑ Naomi Kodama, “Increase of Potential GDP from Women's Labor Force Participation”. Tokyo: METI Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), 29 September 2016 (translated from Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 25 August 2016).
↑ Marie Fromaget, “Gender equality in Japan: Can ‘Womenomics’ deliver?” AXA IM Corporate bulletin, Investment Managers/BNP Paribas, 22 October 2019.
↑ OECD Employment Outlook 2025: Japan, 9 July 2025..
↑ ILO Topic portal Domestic workers [accessed May, 2025]. See also: Willem Adema and Jonas Fluchtmann, Bringing Household Services Out of the Shadows. Formalising non-care work in and around the house. Paris: OECD Publishing, 2021.
↑ See: Wages for housework; Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, The power of women and the subversion of the community. Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1973; Wally Seccombe, “The housewife and her labour under capitalism”. New Left Review #83, January-February 1973, pp. 3-24; Ellen Malos (ed.), The politics of housework. London: Allison & Busby, 1980; Bonnie Fox (ed.), Hidden in the household; women’s domestic labour under capitalism. Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1980; Frigga Haug, "The Women’s Movement in West Germany". New Left Review, I/#155, January-February Feb 1986, pp. 50-74.
↑ Marlene Dixon, The future of women. San Francisco: Synthesis Publications, 1983.
↑ UNDP, Human Development Report 2019. Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: inequalities in human development in the 21st century. New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2019.
↑ Charles Reitz, “Accounting for Inequality: Questioning Piketty on National Income Accounts and the Capital-Labor Split”. Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 48, Issue 2, September 2015. Reprinted in: Lauren Langman and David A. Smith, (ed.), Twenty-First Century Inequality & Capitalism: Piketty, Marx and Beyond. Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 186-200; Thomas Piketty et al., “Distributional National Accounts Guidelines: Methods and Concepts Used in WID.world”. World Inequality Database at WID.world – Working Paper N° 2016/2; Thomas Piketty et al., Distributional National Accounts Guidelines. Methods and Concepts used in the World Inequality Database, 27 February 2024.
↑ Anwar Shaikh and Ahmet Tonak, Measuring the Wealth of Nations. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Anwar Shaikh, Capitalism: competition, conflict, crises. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
↑ Dennis J Fixler, Marshall B. Reinsdorf and Shaunda Villones, "Measuring the services of commercial banks in the NIPA." IFC Bulletin No. 33 (Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics, Bank of International Settlements), 2007.
↑ Geoff Tily, “John Maynard Keynes and the Development of National Accounts in Britain, 1895- 1941”. Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 55, No. 2, 2009, pp. 331-359.
↑ True profit income of a country is larger than SNA operating surplus for at least eight reasons: (1) depreciation write-offs and various subsidies typically contain elements of profit, for example because of government incentive programs for business enterprises; (2) profits on land sales, natural resource depletion and subsoil rents are conceptually excluded from operating surplus, because they fall outside the production boundary — this is changing somewhat with the adoption of SNA 2025; (3) many profits on asset (property) transactions and capital gains are conceptually excluded from operating surplus, because they are not regarded as a component of gross value added, and fall outside the production boundary; (4) the component of net profit receipts/payments in foreign transactions which is included in GNP and GNI, is excluded in GDP (for some countries, their net gains or losses of profit money through foreign transactions can be quite large); (5) the profits of banks are not explicitly stated in the financial sector account, or are regarded as equal to their net interest receipts (the value of bank services), even although commercial banks also make profits as property income (from asset trades, dividends, securities, derivatives, foreign exchange and properties they own); (6) a fraction of profit receipts is routed to tax havens, and is not registered in the resident country of the owners (see also profit shifting); (7) The "compensation of employees" aggregate includes remuneration in the form of various types of profit-sharing for employees and stock options for corporate officers; (8) profits from some types of transactions (e.g. illegal sales of goods, sales of household goods and resale of used goods) may not be accounted for at all. Admittedly, the operating surplus aggregate is inflated by the “imputed rental value of owner-occupied dwellings”, which in reality does not exist as a flow of income.
↑ See further Paul Dunne (ed), Quantitative Marxism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991 and the IWGVT/COPE site.
↑ Thomas Piketty et al., Distributional National Accounts Guidelines. Methods and Concepts used in the World Inequality Database, 27 February 2024.
↑ Joy E. Hecht, "National Environmental Accounting: A Practical Introduction", in: International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2007, pp 3-66.
↑ Joy E. Hecht, National environmental accounting: Bridging the gap between ecology and economy. Washington DC: Resources for the Future, 2005; Erhun Kula, History of environmental economic thought. London: Routledge 2006.
↑ There also exist environmentalist criticisms which, in effect, completely reject SNA accounting practice as such, but these views are not discussed here, because they do not change the SNA framework, and delete the validity and merit of the whole SNA endeavour.
↑ See e.g. Larry Lohmann, "Toward a different debate in environmental accounting: The cases of carbon and cost–benefit." Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 34, Issue 3–4, 2009, pp. 499–534; Peter Bartelmus, "Environmental–Economic Accounting: Progress and Digression in the SEEA Revisions." Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 59, Issue 3, 2013, pp. 509–525; Michael Vardon et al., "How the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting can improve environmental information systems and data quality for decision making". Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 89, November 2018, pp. 83-92; Glenn-Marie Lange, Quentin Wodon, and Kevin Carey (eds.). The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018. Building a Sustainable Future. Washington DC: World Bank, 2018. Chapter 2: "The Evolution of Natural Capital Accounting."; F. van Nederveen Meerkerk, "The system of environmental and economic accounting and the economics of integration." Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Vol. 66, Issue 12, 2023, pp. 2107–2127.
↑ See e.g. Mario Cogoy & Karl W. Steiniger (eds.), The economics of global environmental change. International cooperation for sustainability. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007.
↑ See e.g. Ernst Lutz & Mohan Munasinghe, “Accounting for the Environment”. In: Finance & Development (IMF/IBRD, Washington DC), March 1991, pp. 19-21.
↑ Environmental Accounts. A brochure of the UNSD, New York, 2007.
↑ Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting. An Operational Manual. Handbook of National Accounting, Studies in Methods Series F, No. 78, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.F/78 New York: United Nations/UNSD, 2000.
↑ Alessandra La Notte et al., “Beyond the economic boundaries to account for ecosystem services”. In: Ecosystem Services, Volume 35, February 2019, pp. 116-129.
↑ Nicholas Z. Muller, Eli Fenichel, and Mary Bohman (eds.), Measuring and accounting for environmental public goods: a national accounts perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2025.
↑ Stats NZ, Environmental-economic accounts: Sources and methods (third edition). Wellington, New Zealand: Stats NZ/Tatauranga Aotearoa, July 2020.
↑ OECD, Measuring natural resources in the national accounts: a compilation guide (draft). Paris: OECD, 15 February 2025.
↑ M. Inácio et al., “A systematic literature review on the implementation of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting-Ecosystem accounting in forests, cities and marine areas.” Ecosystem Services, Volume 74, August 2025.
↑ IBRD/The World Bank, Environmental valuation and greening the national accounts: challenges and initial practical steps. Washington DC: The World Bank, 2010.
↑ Results of the 2024 global assessment of environmental-economic accounting and supporting statistics, prepared by the Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNSC background document). United Nations Statistical Commission, 56th session, New York, 4 - 7 March 2025.
↑ Peter A.G. van Bergeijk, “On the inaccuracies of macroeconomic observations”. National Accounting Review, Volume 6, Issue 3, 2024, pp. 367-383.
↑ Steve MacFeely, “GDP and Beyond: Dilemmas and Heresies”. Journal of Official Statistics Volume 41, Issue 3, September 2025, pp. 788-794.
↑ "The miracle of national accounts statistics is that all over the world, very incomplete, imperfect, and partly outdated datasets are transformed into complete, consistent, and up-to-date standardized pictures of national economies. This miracle of the national accounts is often misunderstood". Frits Bos, "The art and craft of compiling national accounts: statistics and their implication for reliability". Review of Income and Wealth, Series 55, nr. 4, December 2009.
↑ See further Frits Bos, “Use, misuse and proper use of national accounts statistics”. National accounts occasional paper nr. NA-096. Voorburg/Heerlen: Statistics Netherlands, 2007.
↑ Liberty Vittert, “The problem with official statistics – and three ways to make them better”. The Conversation, 18 September 2018.
↑ UNSD and Eurostat, Handbook on Rapid Estimates 2017 edition. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2017.
↑ “UN faces deepening financial crisis, urges members to pay up”. UN News, 19 May 2025.; Richard Gowan, “At 80, the UN struggles on”. Le Monde Diplomatique English edition, 14 October 2025; Ronny Patz, “Reforming the UN during a financial crisis: a foreseeable failure to align money, mandates, and majorities?” Peace and Security Briefing, Brussels: Global Governance Institute, 9 July 2025; Patrick Butchard, Philip Brien and Philip Loft, “UN at 80: Funding challenges at the United Nations”. Research Briefing, House of Commons Library, UK Parliament, 30 October, 2025.
↑ Philip Smith, “The possibilities and limitations of national accounting”. Philip’s economic commentary, Substack page, 24 July 2025.; Sir Robert Chote, “Reflections on the forthcoming System of National Accounts revision”. Address to the 38th General Conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) on 27 August 2024.
↑ In October 2025, Reuters reported: “The U.S. government shutdown, that has turned off the official flow of data, could begin clouding the view for policymakers in Japan and other countries, where insight into the fortunes of the world's biggest economy informs the outlook for their own currencies, trade performance and inflation.” Leika Kihara and Howard Schneider, “Data darkness in US spreads a global shadow”. Reuters, 15 October 2025 (see also Melissa Bland and Dan Burns, “US government shutdown: How it affects key economic data publishing”. Reuters, 1 October 2025).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
