Other changes in the volume of assets

16.18    The entries in the other changes in assets accounts cover many different kinds of changes in assets, liabilities and net worth. Some of these are particular to the type of asset concerned, while others may apply to all types of assets.

16.19    Other changes in the volume of assets are categorised as follows:

• Economic appearance of non-produced non-financial assets – includes natural resources; contracts, leases and licences; and goodwill and marketing assets.
• Economic appearance of produced non-financial assets – includes valuables and historic monuments which, for various reasons (e.g. not thought previously to be of value), have been excluded from the balance sheets.
• Economic disappearance of non-produced non-financial assets – includes depletion of natural economic assets such as forests and mineral and energy resources as a result of physical removal and use, reassessment of mineral and energy resources as no longer exploitable; negative quality changes arising from changes in use; degradation due to use in economic activity; cancellation of contracts, leases and licences; and write-offs or write-downs of patents and goodwill.
• Catastrophic losses – losses of produced and non-produced assets from (i) earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, hurricanes, drought and other natural disasters; (ii) acts of war, riots, other political events; and (iii) technological accidents such as toxic spills and inadvertent release of radioactive materials.
• Uncompensated seizures – includes seizures of assets by governments or other institutional units; such seizures may be in contravention of national or international law (excludes foreclosures and repossessions by creditors, which are recorded as financial transactions).
• Other volume changes in non-financial assets n.e.c. – includes unforeseen obsolescence, degradation and damage not allowed for in consumption of fixed capital, abandonment of production facilities before they are brought into use, and exceptional losses in inventories (e.g. from fire, robbery or infestation).
• Other volume changes in financial assets and liabilities n.e.c – includes allocation and cancellation of SDRs, write-offs or write-downs of bad debts by creditors, and changes in the actuarially-determined value of defined-benefit pension schemes.
• Changes in classification and structure – includes changes in the sector classification of units, monetisation and demonetisation of gold and other changes in the classification of assets and liabilities.

16.20    In the ASNA it has not been possible to cover all of the types of other volume changes described above and the value of other changes in the volume of assets sometimes is estimated as a residual.