I. INTRODUCTION
D. Other features of the System
| 1.15. | The SNA is a rich and detailed economic accounting system that extends well beyond the main sequence of accounts to encompass other accounts or tables that either contain information that cannot be included in the main accounts or present information in alternative ways, such as matrices, that may be more appropriate for certain types of analysis. It is not proposed to list all these various elements at this point, as they are described in chapter II, but it is useful to draw attention to two specific elements which play a major role in the System. |
1. Supply and use tables
| 1.16. | In addition to the flow accounts and balance sheets described earlier, the central framework of the System also contains detailed supply and use tables in the form of matrices that record how supplies of different kinds of goods and services originate from domestic industries and imports and how those supplies are allocated between various intermediate or final uses, including exports. These tables involve the compilation of a set of integrated production and generation of income accounts for industries - that is, groups of establishments as distinct from institutional units - that are able to draw upon detailed data from industrial censuses or surveys. The supply and use tables provide an accounting framework within which the commodity flow method of compiling national accounts - in which the total supplies and uses of individual types of goods and services have to be balanced with each other - can be systematically exploited. The supply and use tables also provide the basic information for the derivation of detailed input-output tables that are extensively used for purposes of economic analysis and projections. |
2. Price and volume measures
| 1.17. | The System also provides specific guidance about the methodology to be used to compile an integrated set of price and volume indices for flows of goods and services, gross value added and GDP that are consistent with the concepts and accounting principles of the System. It is recommended that annual chain indices should be used where possible, although fixed base indices may also be used when the volume measures for components and aggregates have to be additively consistent for purposes of economic analysis and modelling. |
| 1.18. | Rates of inflation and economic growth appropriately measured by price and volume indices for the main aggregates of the System are key variables both for the evaluation of past economic performance and as targets for the formulation of economic policy-making. They are an essential part of the System, especially given the emergence of inflation as an endemic economic problem in many countries. The System also recognizes that the growth in the volume of GDP and the growth of an economy's real income are not the same because of trading gains or losses resulting from changes in international terms of trade. |
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