THE ART AND CRAFT OF COMPILING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS STATISTICS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR RELIABILITY

Frits Bos

Review of Income and Wealth, 2009, vol. 55, issue 4, 930-958

Abstract: This paper provides a systematic overview of the compilation and reliability of national accounts statistics. It illustrates the various issues with a wide range of examples and stories from national accounts compilation practice. National accounts statistics are estimates of a universal accounting model (SNA93). The operational versions of the model decide what is actually estimated. They are estimated by expanding and transforming the available data with accounting identities, assumptions, and plausibility checks. The estimates reflect personal knowledge and skills, resources, and policy. For a specific type of use, the universal and operational national accounting concepts are usually not perfect. The quantitative importance of such conceptual “measurement errors” is often overlooked but can be substantial. For assessing the reliability of national accounts statistics, sampling theory is not very important. The major methods are consistency checks, sensitivity analysis, and analysis using a description of the data sources, operational model, and compilation methods.

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4991.2009.00353.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:revinw:v:55:y:2009:i:4:p:930-958

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0034-6586

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Income and Wealth is currently edited by Conchita D'Ambrosio and Robert J. Hill

More articles in Review of Income and Wealth from International Association for Research in Income and Wealth Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().