National accounts Institutional sectors
Annual statistics. The first version for year t is published in March of year t+1, followed by revisions in June and December t+1. The final version is published in December t+2.
National level.
930 - Division for National Accounts
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Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community.
Eurostat, OECD.
The national accounts statistics are designed to provide a consistent and comprehensive survey of the national economy. The national accounts contain national aggregates and give detailed descriptions of transactions between different sectors of the domestic economy and between Norway and the rest of the world. The national accounts also provide information on different types of capital stock. Statistics from many areas are utilised in the national accounts. Some parts of the national accounts are derived more or less directly from other statistics, while other parts are based heavily on calculations and estimations.
The institutional sector accounts were first published for the year 1978.
The national accounts are an important tool for macroeconomic analysis, and Statistics Norway's macroeconomic models are based on the national accounts.
Major users of the national accounts are the Ministry of Finance and other ministries, Norges Bank (the Norwegian central bank), research institutes, financial sector analysts, international organisations, the media etc.
The scope of the national accounts is defined in international guidelines in the System of National Accounts SNA 1993 (published by the UN, OECD, IMF, World Bank and the European Commission) and the European System of Accounts ESA 1995.
The national accounting system is built on two fundamental statistical units: institutional units and local kind-of-activity units (establishments). An institutional unit is an economic entity that is capable, in its own right, of owning assets, incurring liabilities and engaging in economic activities with other entities. An institutional unit contains one or more local kind-of-activity units. The local kind-of-activity units are based on a classification of activities. An activity is characterised by the type of inputs used, the production process and the type of goods and services produced as output. Local kind-of-activity units involved in similar activities comprise one industry.
The institutional sector accounts describe all economic transactions involving the various sectors. The accounts also provide information on the stocks financial and non-financial capital. This part of the national accounts is therefore based on institutional units that are capable of providing a full set of accounts. The institutional units are grouped in institutional sectors on the basis of their principal economic functions, behaviour and objectives; see Section 3 for more detail.
The delineation of the economy towards the rest of the world is based on the concept of resident units. A unit is a resident unit when it has a centre of economic interest in the economic territory in question, i.e. when it is engaged in economic activity in a territory for a long period of time (at least one year).
The national accounts contain two fundamental types of information: flows and stocks. Flows refer to changes that take place during a certain period of time, for example the production in an industry during a year. Stocks refer to the situation at a certain point in time, e.g. the value of the stock of non-financial capital or the number of employed persons.
In the national accounts, the concept of production includes, among other things, individual and collective services produced by general government, housing services for own consumption by owner occupiers, production of goods for own consumption, domestic and personal services produced for own final consumption by employing paid staff, illegal production and other production that is not reported to the tax authorities. Domestic and personal services for consumption within the same household are not included in this concept.
The institutional sector accounts are mainly based on accounting statistics for general government and for enterprises, wage statistics and balance of payments statistics. The source statistics may have to be adjusted in order to fulfil the requirements of the national accounts. For areas with incomplete statistical coverage, it is necessary to rely on calculations and estimations.
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The national accounts are based on source statistics collected by other divisions in Statistics Norway.
The accounts are first compiled separately for each sector of the economy. The final step of the compilation process consists of balancing across sectors, mainly based on assumptions of the quality of the various source statistics.
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Concepts and definitions in national accounts
The Norwegian system of national accounts is based on the international standards SNA 1993 and ESA 1995. The national accounts contain national aggregates and give detailed descriptions of transactions between different sectors of the domestic economy and between Norway and the rest of the world.
The Norwegian institutional sector accounts specify the main sectors, i.e. non-financial enterprises, financial enterprises, general government, households and "the rest of the world". It also provides sub-groupings of the main sectors. Some of the sector groupings are outlined in Financial enterprises, Concepts and definitions.
Covers institutional units engaged in market production of non-financial products and services.
The institutional unit consists of one or more legal entities. The Norwegian sector accounts provide the sub-sectors:
Public enterprises, owned by central government
Public enterprises, owned by local government
Private non-financial enterprises
Covers institutional units mainly engaged in financial activities. The main sector is divided into the following sub-groups:
Norges Bank
Commercial Banks
State lending institutions
Unit trusts
Life insurance companies
Private and municipal pension funds
Non-life insurance companies
Financial ancillary corporations
Other financial institutions
Covers institutional units, which in addition to carrying out political responsibilities, provide and enforce regulations, produce public services (mainly non-market) and redistribute income and wealth. The main sector is divided into the following sub-groups:
Central government
Local government
The basic function for the main sector "households" in the national accounts is to provide labour, consume products and services, and to produce goods and services. Depending on the socio-economic characteristics, the household sector can be divided into the following sub-groups:
Households consisting of persons receiving wages
Households consisting of self-employed persons
Households consisting of students, pensioners, joint households
NPISH are institutional units providing services to households. These units are mainly engaged in non-market production. The main income source for NPISH's are transfers from general government, membership fees and voluntary contributions.
The rest of the world is treated as a fully integrated sector in the Norwegian sector accounts. The sector covers all foreign units that have transactions or economic relations with any Norwegian domestic institutional unit.
The system of national accounts is compiled using several different statistical sources. The statistical sources consist of collected data from firms and enterprises, households or different types of registers. The uncertainty in the national accounts figures is therefore related to the uncertainty in source data and the compilation methods. Uncertainty connected to the different statistical sources is usually described as part of the documentation of sources.
Since the system of national accounts is an integrated system containing many routines for balancing and consistency checks of data, one could assume that the national accounts help reduce some of the uncertainty in the source data. On the other hand, the national accounts require compilation of figures in areas where source statistics are very limited or even lacking. In these cases figures are often compiled using a residual method. The uncertainty can be substantial in these areas. Examples of this are the compilation of changes in stocks, operating surplus in industries and gross value added for some industries, especially some of the service industries.
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Several of the statistical sources used in the compilation of the national accounts remain preliminary for longer periods, as they require extensive analysis and numerous revisions before the final figures are known. The preliminary national accounts figures are therefore more uncertain than the final figures.
The institutional sector accounts are compiled for every year back to 1978 and provide comparable figures over time, although the figures for the period 1978-1991 are based on the previous international guidelines of SNA 1968.
The presented figures are based on the international guidelines System of National Accounts (SNA 1993) and the European System of National Accounts (ESA 1995)
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/09/01/nri_en/
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