Glossary:Changes in inventories
This is the stable Version.
Changes in inventories (or stocks) are defined as the difference between additions to and withdrawals from inventories. In national accounts they consist of changes in:
- stocks of outputs that are still held by the units that produced them prior to their being further processed, sold, delivered to other units or used in other ways;
- stocks of products acquired from other units that are intended to be used later for intermediate consumption or for resale without further processing;
- work in progress, which are goods being processed but not yet delivered to the user at the end of the accounting period;
- strategic stocks managed by government authorities (food, oil, stocks for market intervention).
In the national accounts changes in inventories are shown as a change in assets in the capital account.