General government, financial assets and liabilities

Name: General government, financial assets and liabilities
Topic: Public sector

Division for Public Finance

National level only

Quarterly

Eurostat and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose is to offer comparable time series over a long period of time for the general government's financial assets and liabilities based on the international guidelines for financial accounts. In addition, through the EEA agreement, Norway is obliged to report such statistics to the EU's statistical body - Eurostat.

General government financial assets and liabilities is publised in a new format from 2009 with comparable figures from 1995 to the present.

General government’s financial assets and liablities is part of the national accounting system, which is important for analyzing the economic development. Statistics Norway's macroeconomic models are largely based on national accounts statistics. Other users are Norges Bank, the Ministry of Finance, research institutes and media.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

The statistics are closely linked to the Financial accounts. Both statistics are based on the same data foundation. Consolidated figures are published in General government, receivables and liabilities. This means that receivables and liabilities within and between units within central and local government have been eliminated. In the financial accounts, on the other hand, receivables and liabilities between units in central and local government are shown as unconsolidated - that is, without internal receivables and liabilities positions being eliminated..

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

The statistics are part of the national program for official statistics 2021-2023, main area Public finances.

Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 (ESA 2010) of The European Parliament and of the council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (text with EEA relevance).

The population comprises all state, municipal and county municipal administrative bodies limited according to the National Accounts regulations for general government. Public corporations and unincorporated public enterprises (financial or non-financial) are not included.

The financial accounts' database system, FINSE, is used to calculate all figures in these statistics. This database system is based on a number of basic statistics in Statistics Norway, as well as the Norwegian Central Securities Depository (VPS). Important sources are the central government's fiscal account and accounts for municipalities and county municipalities. Information on counterpart and financial instrument group is also used.

In principle, the statistics are based on a total count, but in practice some smaller accounts are not collected due to a lack of resources and a lack of an overview of the population.

The compilation process comprises a long list of reconciliation procedures and consistency checks, which also contributes to the quality assurance of the different statistical sources.

The source statistics may have to be adjusted in order to fulfil the requirements of the financial accounts; first source data have to be adapted to financial accounts data structure; source data are then balanced in the database system. In cases where we have two or more data sources for the same asset relationship, one data serie is selected according to predetermined rules. The most important choice is between creditor and debtor information. Discrepancies occur when there are differences in information given from the creditor and debtor respectively.

Discrepancies can be explained by different definitions or different estimations of value, but can also occur due to errors and shortcomings in the statistical sources. In cases where errors are revealed, this is reported to the division responsible for the compilation of the statistics in question.

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

There are comparable figures from 1995 to the present.

The financial accounts are compiled using different statistical sources. The uncertainty in the financial accounts figures is related to the uncertainty in source data and the compilation methods. Since the database system is an integrated system containing many routines for balancing and consistency checks of data, one could assume that the financial accounts help reduce some of the uncertainty in the source data. On the other hand, the financial accounts require compilation of figures in areas where source statistics are very limited or even lacking. The uncertainty can be substantial in these areas.

Figures are revised as new information on financial accounts becomes available. In order to avoid breaks in the timeseries, new data sources are incorporated in previously published years.

Preliminary figures for financial assets and liabilities are released in March after the end of the reference period. At that time, only a small part of the basic information from units in general government has been incorporated. This involves some uncertainty, especially related to calculations of the financial instrument groups “Other receivables and other liabilities”. When the statistics are later updated, these sources are included and uncertainty is reduced.