A CONCEPT OF SATELLITE ACCOUNT IN THE REVISED SNA

Within the last two decades, national accountants wondered whether they were able to solve problems that in many respects were of the squaring the circle type: how could they embellish their representation of the economy without having their instrument grow heavier and less flexible? How could they elaborate synthetic frameworks in fields of collective concern that could both be specific and insure a dialogue with macroeconomics? How to keep consistent with the central framework and at the same time experiment with some freedom and flexibility. Satellite accounts are an answer to these questions. Much experience has been accumulated on satellite accounts in both national statistical offices and in international organisations. This paper provides a survey of this work. After an introduction (Part 1) devoted to stating the question, we try to propose a classification for the different types of satellite accounts (Part 2). Then we show their common characteristics (Part 3). However, this exercise would still remain abstract if we did not present samples of currently produced accounts. That is what we do in Part 4 with four examples. These examples have purposely been chosen in fields where many countries and international organizations have heavy investments, thus insuring the specific results will be obvious.