Relevance
Institutional
sectors combine institutional units with broadly similar characteristics and
behaviour: non-financial corporations, financial corporations, households,
non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs), and the government. Transactions carried out between resident
institutional units and non-resident units are recorded in the ‘rest of the
world’ account.
The
distinction of sectors within National Accounts makes it possible to measure
the role of key contributors in the economy: their production, income and use
of income, investments and net worth.
Sector Accounts record all the activities, whether principal or
secondary, of the institutional units covered.
Institutional units are the basic economic units in National Accounts.
The
non-financial Annual Sector Accounts (ASA) are compiled in accordance with the
European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and are transmitted to Eurostat
following the ESA 2010 transmission programme established by Regulation (EU) No.
549/2013. The ASA encompass
non-financial accounts that provide a description of the different stages of
the economic process. The ASA record the
economic flows of institutional sectors in order to illustrate their economic
behaviour and interactions between them.
Methodological
description
The
compilation of non-financial accounts by institutional sector relies on the
integration of various data sources, including surveys and censuses,
administrative records, and extrapolations and models. The concepts, definitions and classifications
are based on the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010). The statistical unit is the institutional
unit, defined as an “elementary economic decision-making centre characterised
by uniformity of behaviour and decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its
principal function.”
Accuracy
and reliability of data
The
accuracy of National Accounts results is ensured through validation checks made
to data sources during processing. Such checks include growth rate analysis in
turnover and employment; analysis of absolute changes over the same quarter of
the preceding year; ratio analysis; comparisons at company level and in
disaggregated levels and checks for data plausibility.
Timeliness
and punctuality of data
The ‘Non-Financial Accounts
by Institutional Sector’ news release is published annually as scheduled in the Advance Release Calendar on the pre-established date. Such data is published in October of year t+1
and covers reference period year t-5 to year t.
Data
should be transmitted to Eurostat within 9 months after the end of the
reference year.
Accessibility
and clarity of data
The
national news release is made available on the NSO’s website.
Non-financial
account by institutional sector data is available also on the NSO’s Statistical
Database (StatDB).
Coherence
and comparability / consistency of data
The
comparability with other European Union member states is ensured by the
application of common definitions and methodological framework established
by ESA 2010, which is based on internationally agreed System of National
Accounts (SNA 2008).
The production and
generation of income accounts are published on a yearly basis by the NSO for
2005 onwards with a time lag of one year.