United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
African Centre for
Statistics
Expert Group Meeting to review the “Handbook on
SUT: Compilation, Application and Good Practices”
Chapter 7: Balancing supply and uses
Economic Statistics and National Accounts Section
African Centre for Statistics (ACS)
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
24-28 October 2011
Outline of the presentation
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Example 1 (Manual balancing)
Example 2 (Manual balancing)
Driving factors (of the manual balancing)
Automatic balancing: RAS Method
Comments
Questions for discussions
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Example 1: garments
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Example 1: Firm figures
• The compiler decides on firm figures:
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Imports and exports
Taxes and subsidies
Government and NPISH consumption expenditure
Gross fixed capital formation
Changes in inventories
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Example 1: Data sources
• The compiler analyses data sources to identify
weaknesses :
– For households expenditures, the coverage of the survey can be
criticized: “Decision to reduce it of 4%”
– For domestic production, the survey was made three years ago
and the coverage can be criticized (because of the type of
enterprises producing this type of products): “ Domestic
production becomes a balancing item”
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Example 1: Balanced table
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Example 2: Advertising
services
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Example 2: Analysis
• VAT are paid by HH: Estimation of HH
expenditures is possible
– HH expenditure = (Tax amount / % VAT) + Tax
amount
• Government does not usually purchase this type
of products:
– Enterprises must have purchased these products as
intermediate consumption
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Example 2: Balanced table
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Driving factors
• Identification of consistent figures to define
pivots
• Identification of the weaknesses of the data
sources: adjustments needed
• Experts opinion and good knowledge of the
economy are important
• Type of products under analysis will help also
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Chapter 7: Automatic balancing
• Example of balancing through the usage of the
RAS method
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RAS Method: assumptions
• There exist an input-output table estimated from
full-data for a past year.
• Row and column sums for the input-output table
of the present year are available.
– The content of the matrix is empty.
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RAS method: objectives
• Objective: finding a set of multipliers to adjust
the columns and the rows so that the sum of the
cells of the adjusted matrix will be equal to the
required rows and columns.
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RAS Method: mathematical
background
• A(1) =
Matrix of
multipliers:
substitution
effects
•
Coefficient
matrix of the
benchmark
year
Matrix of
multipliers:
fabrication
effects
A (1) =
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RAS method: example (1/5)
• Benchmark year matrix
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RAS method: example (2/5)
• Year 1
Coefficient matrix of the
benchmark year
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RAS method: example (3/5)
• First iteration
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RAS method: example (4/5)
• Adjustment resulting from the 1st iteration
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RAS method: example (5/5)
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Comments
• Presentation of the RAS method is not easily accessible
• For the manual balancing, it would be good to list the
key factors which do give orientations to the SUT
compilers
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Questions for discussions
• What are the missing elements in the list of key
factors used for manual balancing?
• What are the advantages, the disadvantages
resulting from the usage of the RAS method?
• What is the bias resulting from the usage of the
RAS method?
African Centre for
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United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
African Centre for
Statistics
Thank you
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