The general government and public sectors

A major strength of the SNA is the ability to compile accounts for whole sectors, individual units, or some intermediate levels and to aggregate the accounts in different ways. Disaggregating the economy into various sectors and subsectors makes it possible to observe and analyse the interactions between the different parts of the economy for purposes of policymaking. Particular interest is given to the general government sector, as defined in chapter 4 and the public sector, as defined in this chapter. Many of the concepts in this chapter have been described in a number of previous chapters. This chapter aims to bring these together, give some more elaboration on how they might be put into practice and gives a link to other systems of economic statistics particularly aimed at government such as the GFSM2001, the ESA95 Manual on Government Debt and Deficit (Eurostat, 2002a) and the External Debt Guide.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development