United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Statistical Division
The Impact of Globalisation on National
Accounts
Joint UNECE/OECD/Eurostat Working
Group
Lidia Bratanova
UNECE Statistical Division
14 October 2008, OECD WPNA
Globalisation


Unprecendented increase in the cross-border
movement of goods, services and financial flows, as
well as people
Favourable conditions:
• Lowering of trade barriers
• Reduced costs of communication and transport
• Internet enabling quicker conduct of business
abroad
• Increased ability of companies and people to
operate abroad
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Slide 2
Challenges to the compilation of NA
Increased difficulties to measure economic
transactions from a national viewpoint
 Insufficient coverage and guidance in the
existing international standards
 Need for up-to-date recommendations and
solutions
 Practical implications - challenges to find the
necessary data

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Slide 3
Working Group on the Impact of
Globalisation on NA (WGGNA)

CES decided to create a body to coordinate the
work on globalisation statistics (June 2006);

CES Bureau created the WGGNA in April 2007

Objectives:
•
“to review the main distortions in the compilation of
national accounts and related source statistics, as caused by
globalisation”
•
“to put forward proposals on how to deal with these
distortions in order to improve the quality of NA”.
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Slide 4
Terms of reference of WGGNA

Coordinate with related Working Groups:
•

Inventory of work that have undertaken work on issues related
to the impact act of globalisation on statistics in general and
national accounts in particular-to avoid duplication
Membership:
•
•
•
Joint UNECE/OECD/Eurostat WG - open for all member
states. IMF, UNCTAD and WTO participate actively
Leadership sub-group chaired by Netherlands includes:
Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, United Kingdom, USA,
UNECE, OECD, Eurostat and IMF.
Secretariat provided by the UNECE
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Slide 5
Expected Output

Output: Report providing recommendations and
best practices
•
Identify the areas most affected by globalisation
Proposals on how to improve surveying, processing and
integration of data
Proposals how to arrive at international consistency
Operational guidelines on treatment of goods for processing and
merchanting
•
•
•

Timetable:
•
•
•
•
2008-2009: Regular meetings of LG (twice a year)
May 2009: Second meeting of WGGNA
April 2010: Third meeting of WGGNA-draft report
June 2010: Presentation of the final report to CES
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Slide 6
WGGNA Research Agenda
Four groups of topics

Problems linked to allocation of value added and income
to national economies:
•

Transfer pricing and improved understanding of MNEs behaviour
Specialisation of supply chains:
•
Transactions in intellectual property (e.g.R&D)
•
Special Purpose Entities (SPEs)
•
•
Goods for processing, toll manufacturing
Merchanting
Consignment goods
Commissionaire trading
Re-exports and centralisation of logistics
Other centralised services
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•
•
•
•
Slide 7
WGGNA Research Agenda (cont’d)


Issues related to households, persons and employment:
•
E-commerce
•
Labour mobility and trade in services through the movement of
persons
•
Remittances
•
Tourism and second homes
Other issues:
•
Foreign Direct Investment and related income
•
Transit trade
•
Common trading and currency block issues
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Slide 8
First Meeting of the WGGNA
Three issues discussed in detail:

Goods sent abroad for processing: main conclusions
- General agreement to record on a “change of ownership”
basis as recommended by 2008 SNA and BPM6
- Record in a consistent manner in the BOP and NA
- Data extracted from supply and use tables affected
- Useful for analysts (users) if NSIs preserve additional
supply and use tables that record the gross flows of
processing industries
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Slide 9
First Meeting of the WGGNA (cont’d)
 Merchanting:main
conclusions
- General agreement on 2008 SNA and BPM6 proposals
- Merchanting of services should be further addressed:
what exactly entails and how to deal with it
- Narrower definitions for “global manufacturing” and
“merchanting” activities needed
- Measuring merchanting activities is challenging: what
data to collect and how? Needs to be addressed in more
detail
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Slide 10
First Meeting of the WGGNA (cont’d)

MNEs and allocation of income in NA: main conclusions
- The issue of transfer pricing is important
- Reluctance to adjust for transfer prices unless prices
recorded in the company’s books are clearly wrong and
information on true market prices is available
- GNI may become more important in future because it is
invariant to use of misleading transfer prices
- Surveys and interviews may give new insights on data
availability on transfer prices

Detailed minutes on the UNECE website
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Slide 11
Second Meeting of the WGGNA
 11-13
a.m. May 2009 in Geneva to discuss:
•
Follow-up discussion on MNEs and allocation of
income; goods for processing; and merchanting
•
Transactions in intellectual property
•
Transit trade and re-export
•
Remittances and labour mobility
•
Special purpose entities
•
Foreign direct investment
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Slide 12
WGGNA Dedicated Website
 http://www.unece.org/stats/groups/wggna.e.
htm
•
General information: TOR, list of related TFs and
other specialised groups, research agenda
•
Meetings
•
Useful documents: reading list, Leadership Group
•
Useful links
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Slide 13