Social Accounting Matrix for Ghana 2015

A Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is a comprehensive and economy-wide database recording data on all transactions between production activities, factors of production, institutions, and the rest of the world within a specific economy during a certain period. It has two principal objectives. First, it represents a complete snapshot of the economy showing the economic structure and the circular flow of income and expenditure in the country or region under analysis. Second, in order to analyse how the economy works and to predict the effects of policy interventions, it is used as a database in multisectoral linear models by calculating multipliers, and for the calibration and exploitation of Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models. This report presents Ghana's SAM for 2015, with the main purpose of providing a suitable database for implementing and evaluating the country's own developmental, social and economic policies and initiatives. To this end, the structure of the SAM is presented in detail, explaining the meaning of each account and indicating some estimations and modifications made. Considering the characteristics of the Ghanaian economy, this SAM shows a special structure to reflect the Home Production for Home Consumption (HPHC) issue and a high disaggregation of the agricultural and food sector. Furthermore, considering the SAM as a database, a descriptive analysis of the Ghanaian economy and the linear multipliers analysis are presented. Annex 2 explains how to download the matrix available online.