Understanding NATIONAL ACCOUNTS This manual explains what GDP and GNI and U nd e r s t a nd i n g their components are, and what they mean. It shows how they are used and what they are used for. And it uses practical examples and exercises NATIONAL to clearly explain these notions. This manual approaches national accounts from a truly global perspective. Special chapters are ACCOUNTS dedicated to international comparisons as well as to the national systems used in major economies such as USA, China and India. The opening chapter shows how national accounting concepts relate to macroeconomics. The book goes on to systematically deal with volume and prices, international comparability, production, final uses as well as household, business, government and financial accounts. François Lequiller Derek Blades It also explains how national accounts data are gathered and outlines the history of the system of national accounts. National accounts data as well as answers to exercises and supplementary material are available online via www.SourceOECD.org/understandingnationalaccounts. -:HSTCQE=UWZ[[U: ISBN 92-64-02566-9 30 2006 06 1 P U n d e r s t a n d i n g NATIONAL ACCOUNTS François Lequiller Derek Blades ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT The OECD is a unique forum where the governments of 30 democracies work together to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies. The OECD member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Commission of the European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD. OECD Publishing disseminates widely the results of the Organisation’s statistics gathering and research on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as the conventions, guidelines and standards agreed by its members. This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries. Adapted and translated from Manuel de comptabilité nationale published by Economica, France 49 rue Héricart, 75015 Paris – http://www.economica.fr/ © OECD 2006 No reproduction, copy, transmission or translation of this publication may be made without written permission. Applications should be sent to OECD Publishing: [email protected] or by fax (33-1) 45 24 99 30. Permission to photocopy a portion of this work should be addressed to the Centre français d'exploitation du droit de copie (CFC), 20, rue des Grands-Augustins, 75006 Paris, France, fax (33-1) 46 34 67 19, [email protected] or (for US only) to Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive Danvers, MA 01923, USA, fax (978) 646 8600, [email protected]. PREFACE Preface In today’s “information society”, statistics are thriving. Media pay more attention to economic indicators than ever and analysts spend more time in running their statistical and econometric models, trying to interpret and forecast economic trends. In this context, statistical offices have dramatically increased the amount of data and metadata they publish to satisfy growing demand. New monthly indicators have been produced on important phenomena (activity of the service sector, services prices, vacancies, etc.). There is ongoing competition among OECD countries and regions to produce the most accurate and timely indicators. Though short-term and structural economic indicators are proliferating, media, analysts and policy makers still pay great attention to the evolution of the gross domestic product (GDP) and to the other variables (investment, consumption, etc.) produced in the framework of the national accounts. In addition to annual national accounts figures, quarterly and even monthly data are available in several countries. The borders of national accounts have also been extended to include new areas, namely social and environmental variables. The integration between economic and financial accounts has been enhanced, coherently with the growing importance of capital markets and the financial dimension of today’s economy. To make a long story short, today's national accounts are at the core of a modern system of economic statistics, and they provide the conceptual and actual tool to bring to coherence hundreds of statistical sources available in developed countries. The question, however, is whether users are fully aware of the data richness national accounts can provide. Do they fully exploit the analytical and statistical potential of national accounts? More conceptually, can we assume that users are aware of the changes introduced in national accounts over the last two decades – which are quite important for drawing meaningful analytical conclusions from them? Are we sure that when analysts use productivity data to make inflation forecasts or to assess the long-term economic growth capabilities of a country, they are aware of the limitations that data can have? And what about the international comparability of data? For example, are we sure that the differential in economic growth observed over the last ten years between the United States and the European Union is real and not just a statistical artefact? What are the implications for the evaluation of the future of the world economy of a 17% upward revision of the Chinese GDP published at the end of 2005? Is GDP a good measure of wellbeing or should we look at other measures, reorienting policies towards other targets? Can we trust national accounts figures concerning public deficit, or are these figures manipulated for political reasons – for example including or excluding public institutions from the perimeter of the public administration just to reduce the deficit? These are fundamental questions for those who want to understand what is going on in the economy, especially as policy decisions that influence the life of millions of citizens are taken every day on the basis of these figures. UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS – ISBN 92-64-02566-9 – © OECD 2006 3 PREFACE The authors of this book have made a special effort to answer these questions and many more, keeping the necessary conceptual and statistical rigour, but using, as much as possible, language that will allow non-specialists to understand the “religion of national accounts”. Because of the complexity of the topic, national accountants have been sometimes considered as an esoteric group of “statistical priests”. Well, this book demonstrates that at least some of them are able to explain the key concepts (and even some secrets) of national accounts in an attractive and interesting way. The authors have made interesting choices to achieve this goal: for example, each chapter begins with an introduction discussing some economic statements or policy recommendations of the OECD, and then the chapter explains the definition of the variables used in these economic analyses and, also, their limitations. The book also contains a notable number of concrete examples, illustrated by data from different OECD countries. The book has also Statlinks to the OECD national accounts databases, which allow users to go beyond the figures presented in the book and to learn how to use of the widest sources of national accounts data worldwide. Another smart choice made by the authors is to conclude each chapter with a summary of “what should be remembered” and several exercises, whose answers will be made available on the web pages devoted to the manual. Last, but not least, the book includes a chapter on international comparisons and three special chapters on the United States, China and India. These chapters are particularly important for those who want to understand how the world economy works and will work in future. While the US case is especially important for the completeness of its national accounts data, this book offers, for the first time, a well structured description of Chinese and Indian data, extremely useful even for specialists of national accounts. Let me conclude by thanking Derek Blades and François Lequiller, who have successfully completed a difficult task, putting their unique skills in national accounts to the service of a wide audience of non-specialists. Too often statistics are seen as a necessary, but very dry, subject. I always try to advocate the importance of statistics to non-specialists remembering that the origin of the word “statistics” is “science of the State”. I use this argument not only to convince people that they should be interested in the subject as individual citizens, but also to underline the ethical spirit that animate statisticians in doing their work. In this context, I would like to pay tribute to Derek and François, who have contributed so much to the theory and the implementation of national accounts. Their past and current work in the OECD has been very important to support the analytical and policy activity of the Organisation, and, on behalf of the latter, I would like to thank them for this additional effort. Enrico Giovannini Chief Statistician and Director, Statistics Directorate, OECD 4 UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS – ISBN 92-64-02566-9 – © OECD 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents Chapter 1. The Essential Macroeconomic Aggregates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 1. Defining GDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Box 1. The reference manuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2. The first fundamental equation: derivingGDPinvolume. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3. Defining demand: the role of investment andconsumption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 4. Second fundamental equation: reconciling global output and demand. . . . . . . . . 24 5. Third fundamental equation: reconciling global output andincome . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Box 2. Contributions to growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Key points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Going Further . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 How are these figures obtained? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Accuracy of national accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Limitations and pitfalls to be avoided. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Chapter 2. Distinguishing Between Volume andPriceIncreases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 1. A word of caution: compare volumes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 2. The volume/price breakdown applied to changes over time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 3. The difficulties of aggregation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 4. Volume indices and price indices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Box 1. Measured in the national accounts, the volume of computers rises very sharply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 5. Constant prices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 6. “Chained” accounts and the loss of additivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Box 2. An example of distortion due to the use of constant prices . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 7. Unpleasant practical consequences ofchainlinking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Box 3. How volumes are obtained in the United States national accounts . . . . . . 56 8. The special cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Box 4. The case of margins on computers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 9. And what about the price indices?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Box 5. Contributions and additivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Going further . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Chain-linked levels of changes in inventories and other similar variables . . . . . . . 63 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS – ISBN 92-64-02566-9 – © OECD 2006 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 3. International Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 1. Comparison of growth rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Box 1. The OECD’s International Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Box 2. The Atkinson Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 2. Comparison of ratios: the example of thesavingratio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 3. Comparison of levels of variables: GDP per head in volume. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Box 3. GDP and the measurement of welfare*. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 4. The spatial volume/price breakdown: purchasing power parities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 5. Comparison of variables in absolute terms: household consumption . . . . . . . . . 90 Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Chapter 4. Production: What it Includes and Excludes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Box 1. Apparent labour productivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 1. The production frontier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 2. The illegal economy and the underground economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 3. Measurement of output and of value added: thegeneralcase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Box 2. The trap of internalisation and externalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Box 3. The problem of changes in the value of inventories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4. The measurement of output and of value added: special cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Box 4. Is the output of general government understated?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 5. Nomenclatures and classifications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Going further. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Household services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 The adjustments for the underground economy in the case of France . . . . . . . . . 113 Data sources for the value added of non-finanial enterprises: the example of France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 FISIM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Chapter 5. Defining Final Uses of GDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 1. Final uses in the national accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 2. Households’ final consumption expenditure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 3. Final consumption expenditure by general government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Box 1. Typology of taxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 4. Final consumption expenditure of the NPISHs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 5. Moving from consumption expenditure to actual consumption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 6. Gross fixed capital formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Box 2. A special case: financial leasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 6 UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS – ISBN 92-64-02566-9 – © OECD 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS 7. Changes in inventories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 8. Net acquisitions of valuables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 9. Exports and imports of goods and services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Key points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Going further. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 How do monetary and fiscal policies operate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 The limitations of the national accounts: Consumption of television orofservices financed by advertising. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Data sources: How are the figures obtained? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Chapter 6. The Household Account. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 1. The three key indicators in the household account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 2. The household sector accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 3. An alternative way to measure household disposable income and consumption . 168 Key points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Going further. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 The breakdown of gross mixed income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Actual and imputed social contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Pension funds and social security plans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Income in national accounts and in economic theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Chapter 7. Business Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 1. The relationship between the firm (enterprise) andthecorporation. . . . . . . . . . . . 184 2. The structure of corporate-sector accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 3. From corporations to firms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Key points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Going further. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Consumption of fixed capital and amortisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Profits and gross operating surplus: notto be confused. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Insurance: are net premiums equal to the claims paid out?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Chapter 8. The Financial and Balance Sheet Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 1. The importance of household wealth for the analysis ofthecurrent economic situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 2. The principle of quadruple-entry bookkeeping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Box 1. Saving and investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 3. Financial assets and liabilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS – ISBN 92-64-02566-9 – © OECD 2006 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS Box 2. Tricks of the trade: how to distinguish a financial asset from anon-financial asset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 4. The link between financial flows and financial stocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 5. The non-financial assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 6. The complete sequence of accounts of an institutional sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Key points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Going further. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Holding gains or losses and market prices in the national accounts. . . . . . . . . . . 225 A more complete example of entries in the financial accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Financial accounts and money supply: the example of the euro area. . . . . . . . . . 227 Data sources: the statistical sources for the financial accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 The valuation of assets and its relationship to economic theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Limitations of the national accounts: The exclusions from the balance sheet accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 The Flow of Funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Chapter 9. The General Government Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Box 1. The cyclically adjusted financial balance (or “structural” balance) . . . . . . . . . . 241 1. A simplified diagram for general government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Box 2. Why is such importance attached to item B9?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 2. Detailed structure of the general government account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Box 3. Limitations and pitfalls of percentages of GDP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Box 4. Definition of final consumption expenditure of general government. . . . . . . . . 249 3. What does general government include?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Box 5. The decision-making tree regarding inclusion ingeneralgovernment . . . . 252 4. The principal public-finance indicators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Going further. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 The Maastricht criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Data Sources: How are the figures obtained? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Tricks of the trade: Above and below the line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Accrual accounting in general government accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Exercises. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 Chapter 10.The Input-output Table and Integrated EconomicAccounts. . . . . . . . . . . . 266 1. The supply-and-use tables (SUTs). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Box 1. Sources for the supply-and-use tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 2. The aggregate supply and final uses tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 3. Intermediate use table (IUT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 4. The input-output table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 8 UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS – ISBN 92-64-02566-9 – © OECD 2006