Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product - Annual

NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW
The Australian System of National Accounts - Annual collection is produced annually in respect of the entire economy. A detailed presentation of national accounts for the last 9 years is shown in the latest publication. Tables are grouped under the following headings: summary tables and productivity estimates; sectoral accounts; industry estimates; capital estimates; additional tables available electronically. Includes estimates at current prices and chain volume measures. Definitions and descriptions of items are included.

PURPOSE
This collection is used by public bodies such as: government departments; the Reserve Bank; and academics. Private researchers, industry groups and large corporations are among the private users. The data presented are aimed at the user requiring a much more detailed breakdown of the broad data available from the quarterly national accounts collection. A detailed breakdown by industry and by institutional sector is available via this collection.

SCOPE
Scope and coverage include all Australian resident units engaged in productive activity (as defined by SNA93).

DATA DETAIL

Conceptual framework
Conceptual Framework: The central concept in a national accounting system is economic production. Production is the process whereby labour, natural resources, accumulated capital assets and knowledge are applied to the provision of goods and services. The aim of the Australian System of National Accounts (ASNA) is to cover the production of all goods and services which legally enter the market, and also that part of production which does not enter the market but for which it is possible to impute a value using closely related or analogous market transactions.

Although illegal goods and services are purchased in the market, and should be regarded as part of production, no attempt has been made to include them in the National Accounts because of the unavailability of adequate data. It is possible that some illegal activities may be included by default to the extent that moneys are laundered through legitimate activities. However, allowances are made to take account of the value of legal goods and services produced but not declared for income tax purposes.

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 - examples are clubs, trade unions, chambers of commerce and churches - 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.

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.

Main outputs
Contents include:

Analytical Tables

• Gross domestic product (GDP) and associated statistics
• Expenditure on GDP, chain volume measures
• Chain price indexes
• Implicit price deflators
• Productivity and Related Measures

• Gross domestic product account
• National income account
• National capital account
• National financial account
• National balance sheet
• Balance sheet accounts and accumulation accounts

• Non-financial corporations
• Financial corporations
• General government
• Households
• External

• Non-financial corporations
• Financial corporations
• General government
• Households
• External

• Non-financial corporations
• Financial corporations
• General government
• Households
• External

• Non-financial corporations
• Financial corporations
• General government
• Households
• External

• Total factor income by industry
• Industry gross value added at basis prices by industry
• Consumption of fixed capital
• Compensation of employees
• Dwelling rent
• Agricultural income
• Household final consumption expenditure
• Gross fixed capital formation by asset type, institutional sector and industry
• Changes in inventories
• Capital stock

Classifications
Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC)

Institutional Sector Classification

Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose

Classification of the Functions of Government

Asset Type Classification

Other concepts (summary)


GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
Australia

Comments and/or Other Regions
There are no exclusions - all Australian territory is within scope of the national accounts

COLLECTION FREQUENCY
Annually

Frequency comments
no comment

COLLECTION HISTORY
The first official estimates of national income for Australia were published in 1938 in The Australian Balance of Payments, 1928-29 to 1937-38. In 1945 the first official set of national accounts was prepared by the then Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics (CBCS) and published in the Commonwealth Budget Paper Estimates of National Income and Public Authority Income and Expenditure.

The first official quarterly estimates of national income and expenditure were published in December 1960. In 1963 the CBCS published the first Australian National Accounts: National Income and Expenditure (ANA) bulletin, which included the first annual constant price estimates for Australia. Experimental input-output estimates were published in 1964. The CBCS began to seasonally adjust its quarterly estimates of national income and expenditure in 1967. Estimates of gross product by industry at constant prices were published in 1969 for the first time.

In 1971 the CBCS first published seasonally adjusted, constant price quarterly estimates of national income and expenditure. The CBCS published estimates of national income and expenditure based on the revised System of National Accounts (SNA) (1968 version) in 1973, and also published the first official input-output statistics in the same year.

The first edition of Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods was published in 1981 at about the same time as the first experimental estimates of capital stock. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which replaced the CBCS, published the results of a study into the accuracy and reliability of the quarterly estimates of national income and expenditure in 1982. Experimental State accounts were published in 1984, followed by the first official estimates in 1987. They are now published annually. In 1986 the second set of experimental estimates of capital stock was published followed by the first official estimates of capital stock in 1987. The first quarterly estimates of constant price gross product by industry were released in 1988.

An updated edition of Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods was published in 1990, the same year as the first estimates of multifactor productivity were published. In 1990 the ABS also published developmental flow of funds statistics. Flow of funds estimates are now published on a quarterly basis, along with estimates of stocks of financial assets and liabilities at the end of each quarter. Experimental estimates of national balance sheets for Australia were first released in 1995, followed by the publication of regular annual national and sector balance sheet estimates in 1997.

The SNA 1993 was formally introduced into the national accounts in the September quarter 1998 issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product (ABS Cat No. 5206.0) which was released in December 1998. Prior information on the nature and impact of implementation of the revised standards and methods was provided in a series of discussion and information papers. The first annual national accounts publication on an SNA 1993 basis was Australian System of National Accounts, 1997-98 (ABS Cat No. 5204.0) which was released in April 1999. This publication provided comprehensive national and sectoral accounts, including balance sheets, as well as estimates of capital stock and multifactor productivity. A comprehensively revised version of Australian System of National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods (ABS Cat No. 5216.0) was released in December 2000.

DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes