Design of Economic Accounts and the 1993 System of National Accounts

The System of National Accounts, or SNA as it is widely known, is a set of guidelines with two dimensions. As a set of guidelines for economic accounting, the SNA’s purpose is the same as that of economic accounts in general: to show how to organize information about the flows and stocks that represent an economy in an analytically useful way. To serve this purpose, the SNA provides concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules, and accounts and tables. Together they make up a comprehensive, integrated framework. In its second dimension, as set of guidelines for international use, the SNA’s purposes are to guide contry statistical offices in the development of their own economic accounts and, in the interest of international comparability, to serve as a framework in which countries report their statistics to international organizations.