Asian Development Bank

Rebased and Linked National Accounts Series

National Accounts Statistics provide information about the economic performance of a country. Compiled and presented in different approaches, formats and details, national accounts give aggregate and sectoral insights into the economy and allow derivation of macro-economic indicators useful to researchers, planners and decision- makers. To be able to do substantive modeling and analysis, users of the national accounts require longer and comparable time series data.

The general statistical framework known as the System of National Accounts (SNA) consists of a coherent, consistent and integrated set of macroeconomic accounts, balance sheets and tables based on a set of internationally agreed concepts, definitions and accounting rules. The constant price estimates in terms of the values of a particular reference or base year of the national accounts are important indicators of growth or movements of real output over a time period.

Sixteen developing member countries (DMCs) of the Bank have breaks in their publicly released national accounts series because of changes in base year. The reasons for not linking their series include the lack of technical expertise and suitable methodology, non-adoption of the proposed link series by the government, and the heavy data processing and computation involved. The breaks in the series result in incomparability of the series across different base years thereby rendering it difficult to do meaningful analysis.

• Objectives and Scope
• Implementation
• Workshop Proceedings and Technical Papers