UN SNA: Not ready for prime time

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In 1993, after thousands of hours of committee work by economists and bureaucrats from all nations, the United Nations, with the blessing of the International Monetary Fund, issued a recommendation for a System of National Accounts (known as SNA 1993).

UN SNA: A product of the United Nations

Compared to the Federal Reserve National Flow of Funds Accounts, the United Nations SNA 1993 is not a product that is ready for prime time.

Whereas the Federal Reserve statistics evolved from brilliant insights by the founder of flow of funds accounting, Morris Copeland, in the 1940s and 1950s, based on practical concepts and served with sufficient detail by financial instrument and market sector to be useful, the United Nations product has been jumbled together by macro-economists, with seemingly slight interest in financial markets.

Designed by committees

The SNA 1993 seems to be a compromise, aimed at delivering a standardized product that would satisfy both the island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as the People’s Republic of China, attempting to cover not only countries with developed capital markets as those with no capital markets at all.

The purpose or utility of SNA 1993 is not clear.

The cramped scope of SNA 1993 accounts is seen from the list of tables in a standard report:

1. Gross domestic product by expenditures
2. Relations among product, income, savings and net lending aggregates
3. Value added by industries
4. Output, gross value added and fixed assets by industries
5. Government final consumption expenditure by function
6. Individual consumption expenditure of households, nonprofits, and general government
7. Total economy
8. Rest of the world
9. Non-financial corporations
10. Financial corporations
11. General government
12. Households
13. Non-profit institutions serving households
14. Combined Sectors: Non-Financial and Financial Corporations
15. Combined Sectors: Households and Nonprofits
16. Cross classification of Gross value added by industries and institutional sectors

Designed by economists for economists

As the titles indicate, this information may be of use to macro-economists, but is not helpful for flow of funds analysts.

There are no tables on financial instruments and the breakdown of the sectors lacks enough detail to be useful.

To add insult to injury, the United Nations charges $150 to download a three-year old PDF version of these statistics.

If anyone wants this data, here is the link.