Information on data
Sector accounts help to understand the complex operations of the institutional sectors of an economy, showing how income is obtained and distributed, how capital is generated, and how this is financed.
Institutional sector accounts are part of national accounts, which cover a wide range of statistics describing an economy in various ways via national accounts, government finance, and supply, use and input-output tables.
Institutional sectors
The main institutional sectors covered are:
- non-financial corporations
- financial corporations
- general government
- households
- non-profit institutions serving households
The rest of the world is also included in sector accounts.
Non-financial sector accounts include transactions in products and distributive transactions.
Examples of transactions in products are consumption from households paid to corporations and exports from corporations to the rest of the world.
Distributive transactions include wages paid by corporations to households, taxes paid by households to the government and subsidies paid by the government to corporations.
Financial sector accounts include transactions in financial claims, such as loans, securities, and others. They also include other flows, which are not transactions, such as changes in volume and revaluations.
Stocks for a certain period are formed based on stocks from the past period plus transactions, changes in volume, and changes in prices.
Example
| Stock/ flow development /year | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Stocks/Closing balance sheet for period P-1 | 1 000 | |
| + Transactions in period P | 100 | |
| + Changes in volume in period P | 100 | |
| + Changes in price in period P | 100 | |
| = Closing balance sheet for period P | 1 300 |
Further information
Data are available for quarterly and annual sector accounts.
Non-financial sector accounts are included in the ESA 2010 transmission programme (annual table 8 and quarterly table 801) as well as annual data for financial sector accounts (transactions in table 6 and stocks in table 7). However, quarterly data for financial accounts is compiled based on guideline from the European Central Bank (EC), which varies in some cases.
Quarterly financial sector accounts are transmitted by countries to the ECB. Eurostat then publishes the validated data it receives from the ECB.
The European system of national and regional accounts (ESA 2010) transmission programme defines the datasets that national statistical authorities of the EU countries are obliged to transmit to Eurostat for the compilation of the European accounts.
National accounts data are shared with other institutions, notably with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Non-financial sector accounts are compiled based on the European system of national and regional accounts 2010 (ESA 2010).
Each EU member compiles its own institutional sector accounts through an institution appointed by its government, such as its national statistical office or its national central bank. These data are then transmitted to Eurostat. Data are also supplied by countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and by several EU candidate countries and potential candidates.
Eurostat compiles the institutional sector accounts for the European aggregates, also referred to as European sector accounts, by combining the data of the EU countries. For further information, please refer to the page dedicated to European accounts.
Release dates are announced in the Eurostat release calendar.
Temporary, and usually limited, inconsistencies between different national accounts datasets may occur due to vintage effects.
For example, this may occur for quarterly sector accounts when input sources are not aligned due to different transmission deadlines and the short-term nature of indicators.
Moreover, there may be temporary differences between the sum of quarterly and annual data. This is notably the case in periods outside of autumn, when countries only revise their quarterly data based on updated data sources but not their annual data. For further information, please consult our information on the consistency between quarterly sector accounts and other related national accounts datasets.
National accounts releases have been prioritised as the data are of high user interest. They reflect measures undertaken by governments and their impacts on corporations and households. Eurostat and EU members are strongly committed to respect publication deadlines and provide users with the highest possible data quality. Data and metadata releases are fully transparent regarding impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on national accounts.
Further information
Annual financial sector accounts are used to compile 4 out of 13 macroeconomic imbalances procedure indicators. The indicators measure internal imbalances:
- Household debt (including NPISH), as a percentage of GDP
- Non-financial corporations debt, as a percentage of GDP
- Household (incl. NPISH) credit flow, as a percentage of the debt stock (t-1)
- Non-financial corporations credit flow (excl. FDI), as a percentage of the debt stock (t-1, excl. FDI)
4 key indicators of quarterly non-financial sector accounts are part of Euro indicators, namely:
- households' saving rate
- household investment rate
- investment rate
- profit share of non-financial corporations (NFCs).