POLITICS AND STATISTICS:
A HAPPY MARRIAGE?
World Statistics Congress, STS 045
Hong Kong, August 25-30, 2013
Peter van de Ven
Head of National Accounts
OECD
Overview
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Administrative use of national accounts data
Pros and cons of administrative use
The case of the Excessive Deficit Procedure
Way forward
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Administrative use of NA-data
• GNI/GDP for the calculation of contributions to
international organizations, ECB capital share,
IMF-quotas, etc.
• Regional GDP per capita for the eligibility of a
region to EU Structural Funds
• Government Deficit and Debt (Excessive Deficit
Procedure)
• More recently: Excessive Imbalances Procedure
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Pros of administrative use
• Considerable improvement of quality and international
comparability, e.g. exhaustiveness of GDP-estimates
• Improved transparency, e.g. availability of metadata
• Growing prominence of statistics in general, and national
accounts in particular
• Focus on certain indicators provides single and clear
message, e.g. government deficit and debt
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Cons of administrative use
• Increased allocation of resources to compilation of data
for administrative use
• Less inclination to look at other demands related to
general economic policy and economic research
• Discussion on recording of transactions and
classification of units less balanced, decisions driven by
impact on certain indicators
• More inclined to being “exactly wrong” instead of
“approximately right” => bookkeepers vs. economists
• Political interference in defining and interpreting
international standards
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The case of the Excessive Deficit
Procedure: general
• Growth and Stability Pact:
– Government Deficit < 3% of GDP
– Government Debt < 60% of GDP
• Definitions based on System of National Accounts
• Procedure in case of disputed recording/classifications:
– Formal advice from the Committee on Monetary, Financial and
Balance of Payments statistics (CMFB), often based on previous
work of a dedicated Task Force (http://www.cmfb.org/maintopics/excessive.htm)
– Decision by Eurostat => Manual on Government Deficit and Debt
(http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/government_fi
nance_statistics/methodology/ESA_95)
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The case of the Excessive Deficit
Procedure: some more details
• Always room for interpretation of standards
=> accounting creativity or even gimmickries:
– Sale and lease back of government owned property
– Assumption of pension liabilities of public corporations
– PPPs
– Securitisation
– Etc.
• Political pressure feeds into the process of defining and
interpreting standards:
– Recording of assumption of pension liabilities
– Recording of government interventions into banking system
– Recording of unfunded government sponsored pension
entitlements
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The case of the Excessive Deficit
Procedure: some more details
• Government policy determined by impact on indicators,
not by what’s the sensible thing to do:
– Pension reforms
– Selling government property at the wrong time
• Single indicators provide clear message, but they are
also one-dimensional, and don’t tell the whole story
• Appropriateness of the relevant indicators?
– Deficit => Saving
– Gross Debt => Net Financial Debt or Net Worth
– Contingent liabilities
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The case of the Excessive Deficit
Procedure: way forward
• Stop focussing too much on single indicators
• Provide additional indicators (Saving, Net Financial Debt)
• Provide additional data:
– Table on guarantees and contingent liabilities
– Table on implicit pension liabilities
• Provide more metadata, and especially more information
on possible caveats
• Provide more story-telling, by putting data in a context
 Developments initiated by Eurostat to be fully supported!
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Way Forward
• ???????
• Try to get more involved in the choice of indicators
• Provide additional data and story-telling
• Role and independence of statistics should always be
laid down explicitly
• When interpreting standards: economic substance
should always override legislative interpretation of
standards => need to define certain general principles
• Secure additional funding of resources, instead of
(implicitly) cutting back resources for other areas
• ….
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Thank you for your attention!
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