Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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ADDITIONAL NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MEASURES

In addition to the core set of Australian national accounts statistics, the ABS compiles and publishes more detailed and specialised products which enable a better understanding of particular economic entities or processes. This section briefly outlines the following: Financial accounts; Input-Output tables; satellite accounts; and productivity measures.


Financial Accounts

The ABS produces quarterly and annual information on the levels of financial assets and liabilities of each institutional sector of the economy, the market for financial instruments, and inter-sectoral transactions in financial assets and liabilities classified by financial instrument. The financial accounts provide an insight into the borrowing and lending activities of each sector within the economy. The financial accounts also provide information on the composition of financial instruments issued by the various sectors during a particular period. National and sectoral financial accounts, which show major financial aggregates, are published annually in ABS Australian System of National Accounts (5204.0). For more information see the Financial system chapter and the publication ABS Australian National Accounts: Financial Accounts (5232.0).


Input-Output tables

Input-Output (I-O) tables are an integral part of the Australian System of National Accounts. They present a comprehensive view of the supply and use of products in the economy and the incomes generated from production. The tables are based on the relationship in which the value of the output of each industry is expressed as the sum of the values of all the inputs to that industry. These inputs include the compensation of employees, any profits made from production, taxes on production paid less any subsidies received and the use of the outputs of other industries (e.g. the output of steel from the steel industry may be used as an input by the motor vehicle industry as part of the production process of producing cars).

I-O tables provide a comprehensive level of detail, presenting information on 109 industry and product groups. As a result, they show a much more detailed disaggregation of the production account than is available in ABS Australian System of National Accounts (5204.0). I-O tables show the flows of products (goods and services) through the production process.

The tables are essentially an accounting record of the flows in the economy in a reference year. Analytically the I-O tables show total resources in terms of domestic output and imports, and the uses of goods and services in terms of intermediate consumption, final consumption, gross fixed capital formation and exports. They are mostly used to investigate the likely effects on the rest of the economy from observed or postulated disturbances to part of it. Such examples include the effects of an increase or decrease in the demand for a product, the substitution of imports for local production, an increase in wages, etc.

Most recently a major use of the I-O tables has been to support modelling of the impacts of an Emissions Trading Scheme. The most recent I-O tables are in respect of the 2005-06 reference year.

Supply-Use (S-U) tables are also compiled as a part of the Australian System of National Accounts. In essence, they are simpler constructs of an I-O table and are an integral part of the compilation of I-O tables. They are also used to derive aggregates in ABS Australian System of National Accounts (5204.0) and are compiled every year for three adjacent reference periods. The I-O approach to compiling GDP estimates allows for the quarterly current price GDP figures to be benchmarked to balanced S-U tables. At the time the I-O tables are compiled the measures of current price annual GDP and its components are consistent between S-U tables, I-O tables and the production account. The most recent set of I-O tables available are for 2005-06. For more information see ABS Australian National Accounts: Input-Output tables - Electronic Publication (5209.0.55.001).