5204.0 - Australian System of National Accounts, 2008-09
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 08/12/2009
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APPENDIX 2 THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
The SNA08 delineates a fifth domestic sector for 'private non-profit institutions serving households'. In the ASNA these units are included with the household sector. In addition, there is an external sector which encompasses non-resident governments, persons and businesses that engage in transactions with Australian residents. One feature of both the non-financial corporations sector and the financial corporations sector is that they are designed to cover businesses which are legally, or clearly act as, entities independent of their owners with regard to their incomes, outlays and capital financing transactions, and by virtue of this are required to maintain separate profit and loss and balance sheet accounts. Private enterprises classified to these sectors are mainly companies registered under the Companies Act or by other Acts of Parliament, but in principle, large, important unincorporated enterprises which maintain complete independent financial records (termed quasi-corporate enterprises) should also be included. In practice, private unincorporated enterprises included in these sectors are classified as quasi-corporate only if they are unincorporated financial enterprises, or unincorporated partnerships of companies, or unincorporated enterprises owned by non-residents, or unincorporated enterprises assessable for income tax as companies. Public non-financial corporations include government owned or controlled enterprises which are mainly engaged in the production of goods and services for sale in the market with the intention of substantially covering their costs. These units may be incorporated under company or other special statutes or be unincorporated units of government enterprises. Financial corporations are distinguished from non-financial corporations in that they are mainly engaged in both incurring liabilities and acquiring financial assets, i.e. in borrowing and lending money, in providing superannuation, life, health or other insurance cover, in financial leasing or investing in financial assets. Corporations providing services closely related to and designed to facilitate these activities are also classified as financial corporations. The Reserve Bank is included in the financial corporations sector. Households and unincorporated enterprises are included in the one sector because the owners of ordinary partnerships and sole proprietorships frequently combine their business and personal transactions. Complete sets of accounts in respect of the business activity will often not be available. As mentioned above, large and important unincorporated enterprises and any unincorporated enterprises classified as financial enterprises are regarded in principle as quasi-corporate and included in the non-financial corporations and financial corporations sectors respectively. The general government sector consists of all departments, offices and other bodies mainly engaged in the production of goods and services for consumption by governments and the general public, whose costs of production are mainly financed from public revenues and which provide goods and services to the general public, or sections of the general public, free of charge or at nominal charges well below costs of production. Included are government enterprises mainly engaged in the production of goods and services for other general government enterprises. Non-profit institutions serving businesses or households which are mainly financed and controlled by governments are included in the general government sector. Private non-profit institutions serving businesses or households which are not mainly financed and controlled by government are included in the non-financial corporations, financial corporations and households sectors as appropriate. Although the institutional sector classification does not explicitly include a public sector/private sector dichotomy, the ASNA provide such a dissection of the income, capital and financial accounts and the balance sheets for relevant sectors. Further information on the classification of institutional sectors generally in ABS statistics, see Standard Economic Sector Classification of Australia, 2008 (cat. no. 1218.0). The implementation of the SNA08 introduced some new elements to the Standard Economic Sector Classification for Australia, 2008 (SESCA08). The change is mainly from the introduction of money market funds and other investment funds in the Standard Institutional Sector Classification for Australia (SISCA08). Further information on these changes can be found in Discussion Paper: Proposed Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia (SESCA), 2008 (cat. no. 1218.0.55.001). Industry and purpose classifications As well as the institutional sector classification, other major classifications used in the national accounts are the industry and purpose classifications. The industry classification is primarily designed to classify establishment units by kind of economic activity (industry) although it may also be used in classifying institutional units. The purpose classifications are used to classify household and government expenditures. The industry classification employed throughout the ASNA is the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification, 2006 (cat. no. 1292.0) (ANZSIC06). It has been developed as part of an integrated statistical system which allows for the consistent classification of units across a broad spectrum of ABS collections and compilations. Apart from its application in the national accounts, the ANZSIC06 is used in a large number of ABS collections, including the economic surveys. The structure of the ANZSIC06 comprises four levels, namely Divisions (the broadest level), Subdivisions, Groups and Classes. In the ASNA, data for selected transactions are presented at the Division level; some data are also shown at the Subdivision level. The classification of Household final consumption expenditure is based upon the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP). This classification groups together goods and services that serve similar functions - in the sense of purposes or objectives - within households. The classification of Government final consumption expenditure by purpose uses the Government Purpose Classification (GPC) described in detail in the Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2005 (cat. no. 5514.0.55.001). The GPC is structured around the following four headings:
Statistical units Another feature of a classification of transactors is that rules need to be established for the delineation of the statistical units for which data are to be collected. Transactor units are grouped into two classes: producing units and owning (or financing) units.
It follows that any one enterprise may own and control a number of TAUs which may or may not be involved in different types of productive activities and/or operate in different physical locations. As the enterprise is primarily concerned with decisions relating to both current and capital financial flows, it is the relevant unit for income accounts and capital accounts. TAUs on the other hand are the relevant units for production accounts. TYPES OF TRANSACTIONS In the national accounts, a major distinction is made between transactions relating to the supply and disposition of goods and services on the one hand, and transfer payments and financial transactions on the other. Only the former payments are concerned with the production of goods and services and therefore affect the level of GDP. Transfer payments represent a transfer of income from one sector to another. Financial transactions are concerned with the acquisition of financial assets and liabilities and are the mechanism whereby surplus saving of one sector can be transferred into the productive investment of another sector. The net outcome of the acquisition of financial assets and liabilities is shown as the net lending item in the capital account of each institutional sector. Components of net lending are shown in the financial accounts for each institutional sector. The supply of goods and services includes the gross output of resident producers and imports of goods and services. The disposition of goods and services is divided between intermediate use and final uses. Intermediate use consists of the consumption of non-durable goods and services in the process of production. Final uses consist of final consumption expenditure, gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories and exports of goods and services. The supply and disposition of goods and services can also be viewed as the sum of incomes accruing from production - compensation of employees, gross operating surplus and gross mixed income - and taxes less subsidies on production and imports. Two types of incomes are distinguished, primary and secondary. Primary incomes accrue to institutional units as a consequence of their involvement in the processes of production or the ownership of assets that may be needed for the purposes of production. They are payable out of the value added created by production. Secondary incomes are all other incomes, such as social assistance benefits and other transfer payments. A description of the types of transactions used in the ASNA is provided in the Glossary. THE CONCEPT OF PRODUCTION The central concept in a national accounting system is economic production. Production is a physical process, carried out under the management of an institutional unit, whereby labour, accumulated capital assets and knowledge are used to transform inputs of goods and services into outputs of other goods and services. Production is not confined to the production of goods by farms, mines, factories, etc. It also includes the provision of services of all kinds which either add to the value of goods (such as transport and merchandising services), or are directly bought and sold in the market in their own right (such as the services of doctors, teachers and entertainers).The SNA08 defines the 'production boundary' to include: "All goods and services that are produced as outputs must be such that they can be sold on markets or at least be capable of being provided by one unit to another, with or without charge. The SNA includes within the production boundary all production actually destined for the market, whether for sale or barter. It also includes all goods and services provided free to individual households or collectively to the community by government units or non-profit institutions serving households."(Para.,1.40) In principle, production should be valued at market prices, which are generally transaction prices. In the absence of market transactions, valuation is made according to costs incurred or by reference to market prices for analogous goods or services. Most goods and services provided by general government bodies (as distinct from public enterprises such as government railways) are not normally sold but are nevertheless regarded as part of production. In practice, they are valued at a cost comprising the total of the wages and salaries paid to the employees of general government bodies and the cost of purchased goods and services used including an allowance for the consumption of fixed capital. Similar considerations apply to non-profit institutions serving households - for example, churches and charities - whose costs are largely or wholly met by members and benefactors so that the goods and services produced need not be sold at a commercially determined price. As with general government bodies, the production of non-profit institutions is valued at cost in the national accounts. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has developed a non-profit institutions satellite account for Australia in response to demand for information on the size, structure and economic contribution of non-profit institutions. The Australian National Accounts: Non-profit Institutions Satellite Account, 2006-07 (cat.no. 5256.0) publication released in September 2009, presents estimates of the direct contribution that non-profit institutions make to the Australian economy, and in particular, the contribution of non-profit institutions to key macroeconomic variables such as gross value added and gross domestic product. As this satellite account is an integrated set of statistics on non-profit institutions within the SNA08 framework, it provides a valuable policy and research resource with a wide range of applications. Imputations are made for some goods and services which are not sold in the market place and therefore are not amenable to direct measurement. Imputation is confined to a small number of cases where a reasonably satisfactory basis for the valuation of the implied transaction is available, and where their exclusion could result in distortions in the accounts. In the ASNA, imputations are made for the following:
Production, and associated income flows should conceptually be measured on an accruals basis. Under this basis, transactions between institutional units are recorded when something of economic value is provided by one party to the other. This may or may not coincide with a cash transaction. Transactions internal to one institutional unit are equivalently recorded when economic value is created or transformed. For the most part, transactions in the ASNA are recorded on an accrual basis. However, in some areas, it is only possible to record transactions on a cash basis. THE CONCEPT OF GDP An important objective of the ASNA is to measure the value of economic production in Australia in a given period. In doing so, care must be taken to avoid double counting. Many goods and services are bought by enterprises for use in their own productive activities. If the value of all goods and services produced were added together there would be serious duplication because some goods and services would be added in several times at successive stages of production. In the national accounts it is the value added in production which is important. This is the essence of the concept of gross domestic product (GDP) which is defined in the ASNA as '...the total market value of goods and services produced in Australia after deducting the cost of goods and services used up in the process of production (intermediate consumption), but before deducting consumption of fixed capital.' GDP is the value added of production in the economic territory of Australia regardless of whether the factors of production are owned by Australians or by non-residents. The definition of economic territory in BPM6 is the area under the effective control of the Australian government. Economic territory includes the land area, airspace, territorial waters, including jurisdiction over fishing rights and rights to fuels and minerals of these territories. Australian economic territory includes territorial enclaves in the rest of the world. These are clearly demarcated areas of land, located in other countries, which are owned or rented by the Australian government for diplomatic, military, scientific or other purposes. The economic territory of Australia consists of:
The Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA) is considered joint territory between Australia and Timor-Leste. Due to administrative complexities and measurement difficulties, Norfolk Island transactions will not always be captured in all relevant ABS economic statistics. Most of the transactions involving Norfolk Island are not material to Australia's overall economic performance and not capturing these transactions should not distort the economic statistics. However, any significant transactions will be identified and included in the relevant statistics. An alternative aggregate measure is gross national income (GNI), which is equal to GDP less primary incomes payable to non-residents plus primary incomes receivable from non-residents. Thus GNI is equal to primary incomes receivable by resident institutional units, regardless of where the production takes place. To ensure that GDP is a measure of economic production that is free of duplication, national accountants draw a distinction between intermediate and final purchases. All goods and services which are used up in the course of production by resident producers are intermediate purchases (and are referred to as intermediate consumption). Purchases of capital goods and finished goods and work in progress going into inventories are the only purchases of goods by resident producers that are regarded as parts of final demand. The 'gross' in GDP indicates that no deduction is made for consumption of fixed capital; in other words, the gradual using-up of the economy's productive assets is not accounted for in GDP. A product figure net of capital consumed (i.e. net domestic product) would recognise capital consumption as a necessary cost of producing the economy's goods and services and would therefore be a purer measure of production. However, because of the difficulties involved in measuring capital consumption (and more particularly variations in methods used between countries), GDP has remained the major summary measure of economic activity. MEASURING GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP) GDP can be derived by three broad approaches: the income approach (I), the expenditure approach (E) and the production approach (P). A description of each approach is provided in the following paragraphs. While each measure should, conceptually, deliver the same estimate of GDP, if the three measures are compiled independently using different data sources then different estimates of GDP result. However, the Australian national accounts estimates have been integrated with annual balanced supply and use tables. These tables have been compiled from 1994-95, up to the year preceding the latest complete financial year. As integration with balanced supply and use tables ensures that the same estimate of GDP is obtained from the three approaches, annual estimates using the I, E and P approaches are identical for the years for which these tables are available. Prior to 1994-95 the estimates using each approach are based on independent sources, and there are usually differences between the I, E and P estimates. Nevertheless, for these periods, a single estimate of GDP has been compiled. In chain volume terms, GDP is derived by averaging the chain volume estimates obtained from each of the three independent approaches. The current price estimate of GDP is obtained by reflating the average chain volume estimate by the implicit price deflator derived from the expenditure-based estimates. As a result of the above methods:
Income approach (I) GDP using the income approach is derived as the sum of factor incomes and taxes less subsidies on production and imports. Volume estimates are derived by deflating current price estimates by the implicit price deflator from the expenditure approach. Expenditure approach (E) GDP using the expenditure approach is derived as the sum of all final expenditures, changes in inventories and exports of goods and services less imports of goods and services. Volume estimates are derived for each of the components as well as for their sum. Production approach (P) GDP using the production approach is derived as the sum of gross value added for each industry, at basic prices, plus taxes less subsidies on products. Basic values represent the amounts received by producers, including the value of any subsidies on products, but before any taxes on products. The difference between the sum over all industries of gross value added at basic prices, and GDP at market (or purchasers) prices, is the value of taxes less subsidies on products. ACCOUNTING FOR PRICE CHANGE There are several price effects in basic source data for which allowances can be made by the national accountant to put the national accounts on a more appropriate conceptual basis and to better meet the needs of many users of the data. A distinction can be made between two types of adjustment. The first concerns the compilation of volume estimates. Changes in the value of production over time are a function of movements in prices and changes in volumes. For many uses it is the change in the quantity of production which is of major interest. Therefore the development of time series which remove the effect of price changes is an important part of a national accounting system. In the past, constant price estimates were provided as a measure of volume. These have now been replaced by annually reweighted chain volume measures. In general, chain volume measures provide better indicators of movement in real output and expenditure than do constant price estimates because they take account of changes in price relativities that occur between one year and the next. A full discussion of the concepts and methods underlying ABS chain volume measures is contained in the Information Paper, Introduction of Chain Volume Measures in the Australian National Accounts (cat. no. 5248.0), published in March 1998. The second type of adjustment, which is relevant to the current-price estimates, concerns what is commonly known as 'inflation accounting' and has a parallel in some of the issues surrounding the adoption of current cost accounting in commercial accounts. It relates to price effects in the measurement of income, saving and inventories, with the price adjustment involving the expression of the aggregates in terms of the average prices applying in each accounting period. Examples include the stock valuation adjustment and the treatment of the consumption of fixed capital. Inventory valuation adjustment According to the standards of historical cost accounting, businesses measure the value of inventories as the lower of cost or net realisable value. In times of rising prices, the change in the book value of inventories from one period to the next will reflect an element of holding gain in addition to any physical change. This holding gain will also be reflected in business income and saving. In the ASNA, the element of holding gain is excluded from increase in inventories, income and saving by way of the inventory valuation adjustment. Consumption of fixed capital (COFC) According to the standards of historical cost accounting, businesses allocate the original purchase cost of an asset over the estimated life span of the asset. In periods of rising prices the book value of depreciation will understate the real cost of productive activity and therefore result in an overstatement of business income and saving. The book value of depreciation is adjusted to a current market price basis in the ASNA in order to reflect the fall in value of the asset at the prices current in the period for which the estimates are being made. This is referred to as consumption of fixed capital. No adjustment is made in the ASNA income accounts for the effect of price change on financial assets and liabilities (it is reflected, implicitly, in the balance sheets and, explicitly, in the reconciliations between the balance sheets and transaction accounts), although it is recognised in the ASNA that it can have important implications for some types of analyses. Table 21 and 47 show measures that highlight the links between the traditional income flows and the change in net worth as reflected in the balance sheets. The calculation and presentation of these measures provide additional insights into changes in income, saving and wealth in Australia. TYPES OF ACCOUNTS The types of accounts reflect the major economic processes occurring in the economy, namely production, the distribution of incomes, consumption, saving and investment, financial flows and asset accumulation. The national accounts are composed of the following types of accounts:
Each of these accounts is produced for the nation as a whole, and the set of accounts together constitutes the consolidated summary accounts. In addition, income accounts, capital accounts, financial accounts and balance sheets are constructed for each of the four domestic institutional sectors i.e. non-financial corporations, financial corporations, households, and general government, and for the external sector. The national accounts also include a number of supplementary tables which provide more detailed presentations of the individual sector accounts. Although, in principle, production accounts could be constructed for the four individual institutional sectors, major interest centres instead around production on an industry basis. This cuts across the institutional type of sectoring used in the income and capital accounts since the classification of production units by industry in such a presentation is done without regard to institutional sector. An important feature of the accounts is that they are a double entry system and, therefore, are fully balanced. Every entry has a counterpart entry i.e. every outgoing reappears elsewhere as an incoming, reflecting the circularity of the economic process. Materials and the services of factors of production flow into productive enterprises and final goods and services flow into consumption, capital formation, and changes in inventories. These flows of goods and services are matched by reverse flows of money. Producers pay for their materials and also pay out factor income which (after a number of transfers such as income taxes, and borrowing and lending transactions) flow back as payments from final purchasers. Production accounts Production accounts record the expenses incurred in production and the receipts from sales of goods and services. Sales of goods and services (including goods and services produced for own use) are recorded on the credit side of the account. On the debit side, expenses of production, namely intermediate consumption, compensation of employees, taxes less subsidies on production and imports, gross operating surplus and gross mixed income are recorded. The gross domestic product account is, in effect, a consolidation of the trading accounts of individual enterprises. The receipts side of the gross domestic product account in the ASNA shows sales of goods and services to final consumers (including exports less imports) and changes in inventories. Because only sales to final consumers are shown, revenue from the sale of intermediate goods and services (i.e. goods and services used up in the production of final output) does not appear. In the process of consolidation of the production accounts of all sectors, intermediate goods and services cancel out as the revenue of one producer is a cost to another. On the payments side the incomes from production are shown, namely compensation of employees, gross operating surplus, gross mixed income and net taxes on production and imports. Where the gross domestic product account has been derived from balanced supply and use tables, the sum of the two sides of the account are balanced, otherwise statistical discrepancies are inserted to achieve balance. Income accounts The national income account records income and use of income. On the income side it shows compensation of employees, gross operating surplus, gross mixed income (from unincorporated enterprises) and taxes less subsidies on production and imports. Net secondary income from non-residents is added to derive gross national disposable income. The use of income side of the account shows how gross disposable income is used for final consumption expenditure and the consumption of fixed capital (depreciation), with the balance being the nation's net saving - one source of finance for gross capital formation. The sectoral income accounts are disaggregations of the national income account, and record for each institutional sector its net income arising both from production and from transfers from other sectors, and its uses of income. The difference between income and use of income is net saving (the balancing item). For some institutional subsectors, it has not been possible to estimate consumption of fixed capital separately, so the balancing item is equal to net saving plus consumption of fixed capital. For corporations (both financial and non-financial), the income accounts show income arising from gross operating surplus from the gross domestic product account and property income (such as interest, dividends, reinvested earnings and rent on natural assets) from other sectors. Total income is used to make various payments (such as interest, dividends, reinvested earnings and rent on natural assets) to other sectors. The balance is the saving of the respective sectors and is transferred to their capital accounts. The income account of the household sector shows compensation of employees, gross mixed income (on account of unincorporated enterprises) and gross operating surplus on dwellings owned by persons, which are all from the gross domestic product account, as well as property income (interest, dividends, reinvested earnings on investment funds, property income attributed to insurance policyholders and rent on natural assets) from other sectors, social assistance benefits and various other forms of secondary income. On the use of income side are shown final consumption expenditure, consumer debt interest and other property income payable, income taxes and other current taxes payable, other current transfers to non-residents and other sectors, consumption of fixed capital (on account of unincorporated enterprises and dwellings owned by persons) and net saving (the balancing item). The general government income account shows receipts from income taxes, other taxes on income, wealth, etc., taxes on production and imports, property income (interest, dividends and rent on natural assets) and gross operating surplus. On the use of income side are shown final consumption expenditure, property income payable to other sectors, subsidies, social assistance benefits and other current transfers, consumption of fixed capital and net saving (the balancing item). Capital accounts The national capital account shows sources of funds for financing gross capital formation and the use of these funds. Sources of funds comprise consumption of fixed capital, net saving transferred from the national income account and net capital transfers receivable from non-residents. On the use side gross fixed capital formation, the change in inventories, net acquisitions of non-produced non-financial assets are shown. Conceptually, net lending to non-residents is the balance of the national capital account. However, if there are statistical discrepancies in the gross domestic product account, then these discrepancies must also be taken into account before the derivation of the balancing item. Similar information is provided in the sectoral capital accounts. The balancing item, net lending, reflects the net lending of a particular sector to all other sectors. As sectoral production accounts are not compiled, it is not possible to break any national statistical discrepancies by sector. Accordingly, the sectoral net lending balance includes, implicitly, each sector's share of the national discrepancy. Financial accounts To this point, the discussion has centred around the measurement of the production of goods and services and the links with the income and expenditure of the various sectors of the economy. These are recorded in the production accounts (and input-output tables) and the income accounts and capital accounts of the system, all of which may be referred to as the 'real' accounts. The financial accounts on the other hand address the issue of transactions in financial assets and liabilities. The financial accounts show the changes in assets and liabilities that flow from production decisions in the real economy and, in concept, represent an elaboration of net lending in the capital accounts (where net lending represents the difference between a sector's saving and investment). As all transactions on the real side of the accounts have an exact counterpart on the 'financial' side, the surplus or deficit (net lending) of a sector can be measured from each side i.e. from the financial side as well as from the real side. Any differences in practice due to deficiencies in data sources are reflected in a statistical discrepancy. The major focus in financial accounts is on the different types of financial instruments and their flows between the various institutional sectors (including the rest of the world). Balance sheets National and sector balance sheets record, at particular points in time, values of produced and non-produced assets owned by a nation and its institutional sectors, and the outstanding financial claims between institutional sectors. For any one sector, the total value of all assets held less the value of financial liabilities (including equity capital issued by the sector) is equal to net worth. In a closed economy, national net worth (or national wealth) would be equal to the sum of produced and non-produced assets. In an open economy, national net worth is equal to the sum of produced and non-produced assets and financial claims on non-residents less the sum of liabilities to non-residents (including domestic shares held by non-residents). The change in balance sheet values from one period to the next is necessarily linked to the flows shown in the capital and financial accounts given that stock is equal to the net accumulation of past flows. Produced tangible assets enter stock through gross fixed capital formation and exit through the consumption of fixed capital or scrapping. Non-produced assets also enter the balance sheets as a result of transactions (flows) appearing in the capital accounts. The balance sheets also reflect the impact on stocks of financial assets and liabilities arising from transactions in financial assets and liabilities recorded in the financial accounts. Although the difference between opening and closing balance sheet values is consistent with flows shown in the capital and financial accounts, there are other factors which can lead to a change in balance sheet values. As balance sheet values are measured at current market prices, changes in valuation will result in a different balance sheet position. Balance sheet values are also affected by such things as catastrophic losses and uncompensated seizures. None of these things is recorded in the transaction accounts. Balance sheets also reflect net changes in the value of certain assets that are not accounted for in the capital accounts. Included are natural resources growth less depletions of timber tracts and forests, and new finds less depletion of subsiol. All non-transaction changes in balance sheet values are reflected in an accumulation and revaluation account. This account, in association with the capital and financial accounts, provides a complete picture of the processes involved in moving from the balance sheet position at the beginning of the period to that at the end of the period. The estimates for non-produced assets (natural resources and permission to use natural resources) are the result of ABS estimation techniques that are still considered experimental. It is recommended that interpretation of the monetary value of non-produced assets be undertaken in conjunction with the physical stock data. The national balance sheet is presented in real terms as well as in current prices. The balance sheet includes both non-financial and financial assets, and liabilities which, by definition, are financial. Unlike non-financial assets, financial assets and liabilities cannot be decomposed into prices and volumes, and so it is not possible to derive volume indexes for them. The same is true of gross operating surplus and other income flows. This is the reason chain volume estimates of GDP cannot be derived by aggregating volume indexes of its income components. However, it is possible to deflate income flows, financial assets and liabilities by a general price deflator in order to measure the purchasing power of the aggregate in question over a designated numeraire set of goods and services. Such measures are called 'real' estimates. Real net worth has been derived by aggregating the chain volume estimates of the non-financial assets with the real estimates of financial assets less liabilities. Financial assets and liabilities have been deflated using the implicit price deflator for domestic final demand, that is the changes in real values for these can be interpreted as changes in their purchasing power over the set of goods and services that make up domestic final demand. External accounts All current transactions between Australian residents and non-residents are recorded in the external income account. The income of non-residents includes Australia's imports of goods and services, compensation payable to non-resident employees, property income receivable from Australia and other current transfers from Australia. The use of income side shows Australia's exports of goods and services, compensation payable by non-residents to Australian employees, property income payable to Australia and other current transfers to Australia. The balance on the external income account represents net lending to non-residents: positive net lending to non-residents corresponds to a surplus on current transactions and negative net lending corresponds to a deficit. Aside from some presentation differences, the external income account shown in the national accounts is the same as the current account in balance of payments statistics. The external capital account shows, on one side, the balance on external current transactions (from the external income account) and net capital transfers receivable from Australian residents. On the other side, net acquisitions of non-produced non-financial assets by non-residents is shown. The balance is net lending from non-residents to Australia. The external financial account records all transactions in financial assets between Australian residents and the rest of the world. The balancing item in the external financial account (that is, net acquisition of financial assets less net incurrence of financial liabilities) is conceptually equal to the balancing item in the external capital account. However, in practice a statistical discrepancy is required to achieve balance. The external balance sheet records Australian residents' assets in the rest of the world and non-residents' assets in Australia. The balancing item is Australia's net international investment position, which is a component of Australia's net worth. INPUT-OUTPUT TABLES Input-output tables are essentially a disaggregation of the gross domestic product account. The gross domestic product account represents a fully consolidated measure of economic production for the economy where only transactions representing final production are shown and intermediate production is netted out. Input-output tables on the other hand bring back into focus inter-industry flows of goods and services, thereby providing a more complete description of the process of economic production. They provide detailed information about the supply and disposition of commodities in the economy and the structure and interrelationships of industries. The ABS publishes detailed input-output statistics in Australian National Accounts: Input Output Tables (cat. no. 5209.0.55.001). MULTIFACTOR PRODUCTIVITY ESTIMATES Information contained in the national accounts can be used, along with other information, to obtain estimates of multifactor productivity (MFP). A description of the latest ABS developments in this area, refer to Information Paper: Experimental Estimates of Industry Multifactor Productivity (cat. no. 5260.0.55.001). (For a more information about MFP, refer to Chapter 27 of Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 5216.0).) Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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