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Since the highest Antiquity, political authorities sought to evaluate their principal wealth, the source of their power, i.e. the people which live on their territories. These population censuses were then followed by surveys on prices, on foreign trade and on production of some strategic goods. It was necessary to wait the 1660s for seeing the first works that can really be regarded as the precursors of national accounts. Thus, in 1665, William Petty carries out the first estimates of the national income and wealth of England. In 1696, still in England, Gregory King carried out an integrated statistics system which can be regarded as an ancestor of national accounts. In France, Vauban carried out studies aiming to measure the national income, but Quesnay can really be considered as the main precursor of the national accounts. The structure of his economic Table of 1758 was very similar to the current practices of national accounts, showing in particular the interactions between the sectors of the economy. All these works have the common characteristic to be closely connected to government concerns, generally for tax purposes, sometimes for strategic analysis since the works of Petty and King aimed to compare the capacity of England, Holland and France to support a war effort. But these works were criticised for their unreliability, so that they remain without consequence until the XX° century. The birth of national accounts In the 1930s and 1940s, the works of Colin Clark and Simon Kuznets improved considerably the measurement of the national income but the decisive event which was directly at the source of national accounts took place precisely in 1936. This year, the world had been plunged in the depression for seven years with millions unemployed, the rise of totalitarianisms threatened democracies, but the dominant economic theories continued teaching that under-employment can be only temporary, that the laws of the market will restore the situation naturally and that Government does not have to intervene directly in economic life. It is in this context that the English economist and businessman, John Maynard Keynes, published the "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money". This book tackled the bases of the traditional economic theory and showed that, if it is not fought actively, unemployment can be sustainable. It thus demonstrated the responsibility for government which, by its budgetary policy, could bring back the country to full employment. Seldom had a book such an impact, both at theoretical and practical level. Indeed, during almost about thirty years, the economic policy of all the countries of the Western world was based directly on the principles defined by Keynes. It is only in the 1970s, with the development of unemployment resistant to the Keynesian therapies, that a serious questioning of the Keynesian theories and precepts appeared. However, the Keynesian influence remains very strong and numerous concepts introduced into the "General Theory" still are to the base of the dominant economic theories nowadays. One therefore could, rightly, speak about "Keynesian revolution". National accounts, such as they exist currently in all the countries of the world, fit directly into the extension of the Keynes work, independently of the followed economic policies. Indeed, originally, national accounts were created for permitting the governments to follow the Keynesian recommendations. Thereafter, their consistency, their rigour and their continuity imposed them as an irreplaceable tool of analysis of the economic activity, independently of adhesion or not on the designs which prevailed with its birth. National accounts thus could survive the questioning of the theory which underlay them. 1936 is also the publication date of the article of the American economist Wassily Leontief who was at the origin of the input-output tables which play an important role in national accounts. It was necessary to await the end of the Second World War for the implementation of the first national system of accounts. For the first time the three conditions necessary for the birth of the national accounts were satisfied: 1. a political will of governments, which wished to have tools enabling them to intervene effectively in national economic life; 2. an economic theory sufficiently dominant to impose its concepts; 3. efficient statistical offices. In 1941, in Great Britain, R. Stone and J. Meade proposed in a White Paper, an articulated system of accounts. The same year, J. Tinbergen carried out the first system for the Netherlands. In France, A. Vincent realized the first theoretical work and the first accounts, covering 1938, were carried out in 1945 in the Institute of economic situation by Mr Froment. Thereafter, a team of the General Commission of the Plan formed of Dumontier, Froment, Gavannier and Uri was instructed to work out the accounts. After the first works, the national accounts developed differently in each country. In the aim of standardisation, the UN adopted in 1950 a system which had vocation to serve as a base to the accounts of all the countries. However it has not been adopted everywhere, so that, schematically, it was possible to distinguish three large schools of accounts to coming out of the 1950s: 1. the Anglo-Saxon school, of liberal inspiration which was satisfied with light accounts; 2. the Soviet school which adopted a very heavy account system adapted to its very specific type of centralised planning; 3. the French school which, to meet the needs of planning, had created an original system, intermediary between the Anglo-Saxon system and the Soviet system. The work of harmonisation at the international level continued however under the aegis of the United Nations so that in 1970 the UN published the methodological document of the System of National Accounts (SNA) from which the European System of Accounts is derived (ESA 1979). These systems were in fact a synthesis of the Anglo-Saxon and French systems. International harmonisation At European level, the introduction in 1989 of a new own resource for the European Commission, the fourth resource, was the occasion of significant acceleration of the process of harmonisation of the standards and methods of national accounts. Indeed, the contribution of the Member States to this fourth resource was based on the gross national product (GNP), an important national accounts aggregate. To ensure that the contribution of each country is equitable, it became essential that the methods of calculating of the GNP are comparable in all the countries of the European Union. In this aim, a committee of representatives of all the Member States was created by a European Council Directive. This committee, called GNP Committee, had the responsibility to check that the methods of compiling the GNP were in compliance with the ESA recommendations and to take measures for increasing the comparability and the representativeness of the GNP. At world level, the publication of the System of National Accounts of the United Nations of 1993 (SNA 1993) marked the beginning of a genuine harmonisation of the various existing systems of national accounts in the world. It was carried out under the joint responsibility of Eurostat (European Commission), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the United Nations. The recommendations of the revised system were adopted in all countries, in particular, at European level with the adoption of the European System of Accounts of 1995 (ESA 1995) which is an adaption of the SNA to the European realities. One important characteristic of the ESA 1995 is to form part of a Council Regulation of the European Union on 25 June 1996, which gives it an obligatory character for all the Member States of the Union. After the adoption of the ESA 1995 the gross national income (GNI) replaced the gross national product for the calculation of the distribution of fourth resource and the GNP Committee became the GNI Committee. The standardisation process continues nowadays, thus the revision of the system of the United Nations, undertaken under the joint responsibility of Eurostat, of the IMF, of the OECD, of the World Bank and United Nations, finishes and the revision of the European system is still under way under Eurostat's responsibility. This text reflects only the opinion of its author: Francis Malherbe

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History of national accounts

Precursors

The history of the national accounts is relatively recent but falls under the long statistical tradition which started with the population censuses. Since the highest Antiquity, political authorities sought to evaluate their principal wealth, the source of their power, i.e. the people which live on their territories. These population censuses were then followed by surveys on prices, on foreign trade and on production of some strategic goods.

It was necessary to wait the 1660s for seeing the first works that can really be regarded as the precursors of national accounts. Thus, in 1665, William Petty carries out the first estimates of the national income and wealth of England. In 1696, still in England, Gregory King carried out an integrated statistics system which can be regarded as an ancestor of national accounts. In France, Vauban carried out studies aiming to measure the national income, but Quesnay can really be considered as the main precursor of the national accounts. The structure of his economic Table of 1758 was very similar to the current practices of national accounts, showing in particular the interactions between the sectors of the economy.

All these works have the common characteristic to be closely connected to government concerns, generally for tax purposes, sometimes for strategic analysis since the works of Petty and King aimed to compare the capacity of England, Holland and France to support a war effort. But these works were criticised for their unreliability, so that they remain without consequence until the XX° century.

The birth of national accounts

In the 1930s and 1940s, the works of Colin Clark and Simon Kuznets improved considerably the measurement of the national income but the decisive event which was directly at the source of national accounts took place precisely in 1936.

This year, the world had been plunged in the depression for seven years with millions unemployed, the rise of totalitarianisms threatened democracies, but the dominant economic theories continued teaching that under-employment can be only temporary, that the laws of the market will restore the situation naturally and that Government does not have to intervene directly in economic life.

It is in this context that the English economist and businessman, John Maynard Keynes, published the "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money". This book tackled the bases of the traditional economic theory and showed that, if it is not fought actively, unemployment can be sustainable. It thus demonstrated the responsibility for government which, by its budgetary policy, could bring back the country to full employment. Seldom had a book such an impact, both at theoretical and practical level. Indeed, during almost about thirty years, the economic policy of all the countries of the Western world was based directly on the principles defined by Keynes.

It is only in the 1970s, with the development of unemployment resistant to the Keynesian therapies, that a serious questioning of the Keynesian theories and precepts appeared. However, the Keynesian influence remains very strong and numerous concepts introduced into the "General Theory" still are to the base of the dominant economic theories nowadays. One therefore could, rightly, speak about "Keynesian revolution".

National accounts, such as they exist currently in all the countries of the world, fit directly into the extension of the Keynes work, independently of the followed economic policies. Indeed, originally, national accounts were created for permitting the governments to follow the Keynesian recommendations. Thereafter, their consistency, their rigour and their continuity imposed them as an irreplaceable tool of analysis of the economic activity, independently of adhesion or not on the designs which prevailed with its birth. National accounts thus could survive the questioning of the theory which underlay them.

1936 is also the publication date of the article of the American economist Wassily Leontief who was at the origin of the input-output tables which play an important role in national accounts.

It was necessary to await the end of the Second World War for the implementation of the first national system of accounts. For the first time the three conditions necessary for the birth of the national accounts were satisfied:

1. a political will of governments, which wished to have tools enabling them to intervene effectively in national economic life;
2. an economic theory sufficiently dominant to impose its concepts;
3. efficient statistical offices.

In 1941, in Great Britain, R. Stone and J. Meade proposed in a White Paper, an articulated system of accounts. The same year, J. Tinbergen carried out the first system for the Netherlands. In France, A. Vincent realized the first theoretical work and the first accounts, covering 1938, were carried out in 1945 in the Institute of economic situation by Mr Froment. Thereafter, a team of the General Commission of the Plan formed of Dumontier, Froment, Gavannier and Uri was instructed to work out the accounts.

After the first works, the national accounts developed differently in each country. In the aim of standardisation, the UN adopted in 1950 a system which had vocation to serve as a base to the accounts of all the countries. However it has not been adopted everywhere, so that, schematically, it was possible to distinguish three large schools of accounts to coming out of the 1950s:

1. the Anglo-Saxon school, of liberal inspiration which was satisfied with light accounts;
2. the Soviet school which adopted a very heavy account system adapted to its very specific type of centralised planning;
3. the French school which, to meet the needs of planning, had created an original system, intermediary between the Anglo-Saxon system and the Soviet system.

The work of harmonisation at the international level continued however under the aegis of the United Nations so that in 1970 the UN published the methodological document of the System of National Accounts (SNA) from which the European System of Accounts is derived (ESA 1979). These systems were in fact a synthesis of the Anglo-Saxon and French systems.

International harmonisation

At European level, the introduction in 1989 of a new own resource for the European Commission, the fourth resource, was the occasion of significant acceleration of the process of harmonisation of the standards and methods of national accounts. Indeed, the contribution of the Member States to this fourth resource was based on the gross national product (GNP), an important national accounts aggregate. To ensure that the contribution of each country is equitable, it became essential that the methods of calculating of the GNP are comparable in all the countries of the European Union. In this aim, a committee of representatives of all the Member States was created by a European Council Directive. This committee, called GNP Committee, had the responsibility to check that the methods of compiling the GNP were in compliance with the ESA recommendations and to take measures for increasing the comparability and the representativeness of the GNP.

At world level, the publication of the System of National Accounts of the United Nations of 1993 (SNA 1993) marked the beginning of a genuine harmonisation of the various existing systems of national accounts in the world. It was carried out under the joint responsibility of Eurostat (European Commission), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the United Nations.

The recommendations of the revised system were adopted in all countries, in particular, at European level with the adoption of the European System of Accounts of 1995 (ESA 1995) which is an adaption of the SNA to the European realities. One important characteristic of the ESA 1995 is to form part of a Council Regulation of the European Union on 25 June 1996, which gives it an obligatory character for all the Member States of the Union. After the adoption of the ESA 1995 the gross national income (GNI) replaced the gross national product for the calculation of the distribution of fourth resource and the GNP Committee became the GNI Committee.

The standardisation process continues nowadays, thus the revision of the system of the United Nations, undertaken under the joint responsibility of Eurostat, of the IMF, of the OECD, of the World Bank and United Nations, finishes and the revision of the European system is still under way under Eurostat's responsibility.

This text reflects only the opinion of its author: Francis Malherbe