Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014

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GFS and Other Macroeconomic Statistics 357


volume of assets. In the SNA, the same distinction be-
tween holding gains and other changes in the volume
of assets is made. In the SNA, these accounts are the
revaluation account, in which eff ects of price changes
in values of assets and liabilities are recorded, and the
other changes in volume of assets account, in which
changes in the amounts of the assets and liabilities as
a result of factors other than transactions and revalu-
ations are recorded.^7


A7.21 Th e coverage of the GFS Balance Sheet is
identical to the coverage of the Balance Sheet in the
SNA, except for some employment-related pension
entitlements. Due to diff erent institutional arrange-
ments in countries, some fl exibility is given in the
SNA, but not in GFS, regarding the recording of
pension entitlements for unfunded pension schemes
sponsored by government. Some of these pension en-
titlements may be recorded within the main sequence
of the SNA accounts (also referred to as the core ac-
counts) and others may be reported in supplementary
tables.


Linkages between GFS and the SNA


A7.22 Despite the structural consistencies, the
diff erent objectives of GFS and the SNA require
that a few transactions and other economic fl ows
recorded in the various statements and accounts be
recorded and presented diff erently. Th is section re-
views and summarizes the relevant linkages between
the two datasets. In order to facilitate references
to the respective datasets, the items are referred to
by their names and the relevant SNA and GFS clas-
sifi cation codes.^8 Tables A7.3 and A7.4 indicate how
the GFS revenue and expense categories link with the
SNA classifi cations, and Table A7.5 identifi es the cor-
respondence of GFS and SNA transactions in non-
fi nancial assets, with corresponding classifi cation
codes. Th e SNA also provides volume measures (in-
cluding of government components), an important


(^7) “Revaluations” and “holding gains” are used interchangeably in
the 2008 SNA.
(^8) Th e SNA classifi cation codes for transactions and other fl ows
have the form of a letter: D for distributive transactions, F for
fi nancial assets and liabilities, K for other changes in assets ac-
counts, or P for transactions in products, each followed by a num-
ber. Th e SNA codes for the balance sheet are AN for nonfi nancial
assets and AF for fi nancial assets and liabilities. Th e SNA coding
system uses the letter B for balancing items. Th e GFS coding
system is presented in Appendix 8.
type of measure for fi scal analysis that makes the
SNA complementary to GFS.


Current accounts.

A7.23 Th e current accounts of the SNA record the
production of goods and services, the generation of
income by production, the subsequent distribution
and redistribution of income among institutional
units, and the use of income for purposes of con-
sumption or saving. Th is section describes the GFS
linkages with each of these current accounts.

Th e production account

A7.24 Th e production account records the transac-
tions relating to the activity of producing goods and
services as defi ned in the SNA. Th e balancing item,
gross value added, is defi ned as the value of output
minus the value of intermediate consumption. Th e pro-
duction measure of gross domestic product is defi ned
as gross value added plus any taxes minus subsidies on
products not already included in the value of output.
Output is the value of goods and services produced
during an accounting period. Intermediate consump-
tion comprises the cost of goods and services used in
production. Value added is a measure of the contribu-
tion to gross domestic product made by an individual
producer, industry, or sector. For general government,
the production account represents the general govern-
ment’s contribution to the domestic production.
A7.25 Value added can be presented gross or net of
consumption of fi xed capital. Net value added is the
value of output minus the values of both intermediate
consumption and consumption of fi xed capital. Inter-
mediate consumption of goods and services (P2) and
consumption of fi xed capital (P51c) are included as
uses, while the output (P1) of all goods and services
produced by a general government unit is a resource.
Total output is divided into market output (P11), out-
put for own fi nal use (P12),^9 and other nonmarket
output (P13).
A7.26 Output is not recorded as such in GFS. Nev-
ertheless, the total output of the general government
sector can be determined as the sum of the output of

(^9) Output for own fi nal use in the SNA consists of products
retained by the producer for its own use as fi nal consumption or
capital formation. Th erefore, own-account capital formation, as
referred to in GFS, is a narrower defi nition than the SNA concept
of output for own fi nal use.

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