National accounts in the context of "United Nations System of National Accounts"

In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and services that a society produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted output of an economy in a given year or over a period of time.

The rate of growth is typically calculated as real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, real GDP per capita growth rate or GNI per capita growth. The "rate" of economic growth refers to the geometric annual rate of growth in GDP or GDP per capita between the first and the last year over a period of time. This growth rate represents the trend in the average level of GDP over the period, and ignores any fluctuations in the GDP around this trend. Growth is usually calculated in "real" value, which is inflation-adjusted, to eliminate the distorting effect of inflation on the prices of goods produced. GDP per capita is the GDP of the entire country divided by the number of people in the country. Measurement of economic growth uses national income accounting.

Disposable income is total personal income minus current taxes on income. In national accounting, personal income minus personal current taxes equals disposable personal income or household disposable income. Subtracting personal outlays (which includes the major category of personal [or private] consumption expenditure) yields personal (or, private) savings, hence the income left after paying away all the taxes is referred to as disposable income.

Restated, consumption expenditure plus savings equals disposable income after accounting for transfers such as payments to children in school or elderly parents' living and care arrangements.

Factor income (also called primary income and earned income) is the flow of income that is derived from the factors of production, i.e., the general inputs required to produce goods and services. Factor income on the use of land is called rent, income generated from labor is called wages, and income generated from capital is divided between profit for equity owner and interest for creditor. The total amount of factor income received by the residents of a country is referred to as the national income, while factor income and current transfers together are referred to as disposable income.

In contemporary national accounting, Indirect taxes minus subsidies are treated like factor income despite not meeting the definition. In earlier system like the 1953 SNAdefined to concept of GDP : the sum of all factor income called GDP at factor cost, and the sum of all expenditure called GDP at market price. (GDP at market price = GDP at factor cost + Indirect taxes minus subsidies). Factor cost measured have being abandoned by the SNA.

The circular flow of income or circular flow is a model of the economy in which the major exchanges are represented as flows of money, goods and services, etc. between economic agents. The flows of money and goods exchanged in a closed circuit correspond in value, but run in the opposite direction. The circular flow analysis is the basis of national accounts and hence of macroeconomics.

The idea of the circular flow was already present in the work of Richard Cantillon. François Quesnay developed and visualized this concept in the so-called Tableau économique. Important developments of Quesnay's tableau were Karl Marx's reproduction schemes in the second volume of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, and John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Richard Stone further developed the concept for the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to the system, which is now used internationally.

Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) is a component of the expenditure on gross domestic product (GDP) that indicates how much of the new value added in an economy is invested rather than consumed. It measures the value of acquisitions of new or existing fixed assets by the business sector, governments, and "pure" households (excluding their unincorporated enterprises) minus disposals of fixed assets.

GFCF is a macroeconomic concept used in official national accounts such as the United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA), National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA), and the European System of Accounts (ESA). The concept dates back to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) studies of Simon Kuznets of capital formation in the 1930s, and standard measures for it were adopted in the 1950s.

The System of National Accounts or SNA (until 1993 known as the United Nations System of National Accounts or UNSNA) is an international standard system of concepts and methods for creating national accounts. The system is nowadays used by almost all countries in the world. SNA-type national accounts are among the world's most important sources of macroeconomic statistics. They provide essential data for empirical macroeconomic models and economic forecasting.

SNA aims to maintain an integrated, complete and up-to-date system of standard national accounts, for the purpose of economic analysis, policymaking and decisionmaking. When individual countries use SNA standards to guide the construction of their own national accounting systems, it results in much better data quality and comparability (between countries and across time). In turn, that helps to form more accurate judgements about economic situations, and to put economic issues in correct proportion — nationally and internationally.

Sir John Richard Nicholas Stone CBE FBA (30 August 1913 – 6 December 1991) was an eminent British economist. He was educated at Gonville and Caius College and King's College at the University of Cambridge. In 1984, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing an accounting model that could be used to track economic activities on a national and, later, an international scale.

The national income and product accounts (NIPA) are part of the national accounts of the United States. They are produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce. They are one of the main sources of data on general economic activity in the United States.

They use double-entry accounting to report the monetary value and sources of output produced in the country and the distribution of incomes that production generates. Data are available at the national and industry levels.