Understanding national accounts

Objective

This course is given by François Lequiller, former head of the French national accounts department and national accounts manager at the OECD. It is based on the recent (2007) OECD publication "Understanding National Accounts''. For this reason, the course will be given mostly in English. The national accounts constitute a fundamental system of statistics for macroeconomists and economic forecasters, in both French and international terms. This importance has been accentuated in recent years by the use of national accounts in calculating the "Maastricht criteria". The intention of the course is to systematically locate the definitions of the national accounts in the context of their use by economists. A significant part of the course is devoted to the issues of estimating and the limits of this data. François Lequiller's experience guarantees a direct connection to the practice (and what goes on backstage) in this area. The work contains exercises with answers.

Planning

1. Introduction: Objectives and Architecture of National Accounts

2. The Scope of Production in National Accounts

3. The Components of Final Demand

4. The Input-Output Table (IOT) and the Volume-Price Breakdown

5. The Corporate Account

6. The Household Account

7. The General Government Account

8. Quarterly Accounts

9. The Overall Economic Table and Balance Sheets

References

Piriou J-P., Bournay J., Biausque V. (2019), la comptabilité nationale, collection Grands repères

Lequiller, F. and D. Blades (2014), Understanding National Accounts: Second Edition, OECD Publishing.