PROGRESS REPORT ON THE OECD FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS DATABASES

WPFS 13-14 October 2008 by Michèle Chavoix-Mannato, OECD/STD

Main objectives

•To thank all Delegates and contacts in OCD countries

•To inform Delegates about the current situation

•To present some results of the Quality Survey

•To discuss and decide possible changes

Current SituationCollection and Dissemination of Annual Financial

Accounts & Financial Balance Sheets

General Remarks

• Data available for both accounts for all OECD countries, except Iceland and New Zealand

• Data available for both sets (CO or NCO), except AUS, CAN, JPN, KOR, CHE, TUR, USA

• Data available up to 2007, except JPN, LUX, POL and CHE (2005)

Current SituationCollection and Dissemination of Annual Financial

Accounts & Financial Balance Sheets

Improvements and shortcomings Austria: historical data as from 1980 for S14-S15

Czech Republic and Canada: CO data for S13 and components ; Czech Republic: CO data for S12 and S2 Switzerland: NCO flows for S13 and components, and S14-S15

Luxembourg: S13 and sub-sectors only Turkey: S121 and S122 only IRL,KOR,MEX,CHE,TUR: short time coverage (5 Y<data< 10 Y) JPN: no data for 2007; CHE: no data for 2006

OECD Quality ReviewsBackground

• Quality reviews are a continuous process regarding OECD databases and publications launched in 2001

• They provide a systematic mechanism to assess their quality

• They are based on eight dimensions

• The ‘quality’ of the OECD FA and FBS, created in 2003, has to be reviewed in 2008

• A core part of the Quality Review is a survey of users • Such a survey has been directly sent to 450 persons

(WPFS Delegates, other official contacts, customers and subscribers, external and internal users)

First global results

• Only 21 persons have replied yet (all from official institutions, most WPFS Delegates), of whicho 3 sent back a totally empty survey

o 3 completed less than half questions

• Many respondents do not know how to navigate into OECD.Stat

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• Most respondents are satisfied with the FA and FBS products

• They use them with a frequency between once a month to once a year

Results according to the main criteria

RelevanceGeneral satisfaction with data in national currencies

Most users would like to find derived series in addition to primary data A large majority would appreciate to find the other accumulation sub-accounts

Half users are interested in FA and FBS of non-member countriesVery few are interested in long series

Accuracy The systematic coverage of financial assets/liabilities is very useful

The combination of both NCO and CO data are very helpful: but, NCO data very important for nearly all users; CO data necessary for three-quarters of them

AccessibilityEasy access to OECD.Stat by a large majority of respondents, but frequent ignorance of the official way

Interpretability Less than half of respondents use the related methodological notes

Coherence Users recommend to follow the SNA definitions and accounting rules

Possible improvementsDatabases and Publications

For most users it would be useful to find:• relevant indicators and graphs rather than

primary data which would show current situations and trends enable comparisons across countries

• accumulation sub-accounts data (Revaluation and Other changes in volume) in order to

contribute to a better understanding of the difference between flows and changes in stocks

enable analyses of the impact of revaluation on balance sheet accounts

Decisions to be taken

• Delegates should agree on a list of relevant and internationally comparable indicators and possible graphs

• The Secretariat should modify the databases and electronic publications and lay out a new printed publication

• If conclusions cannot be reached during the meeting, the written procedure will be used.

The Financial Statistics Section

• thanks all Delegates and their colleagues

• ask them to continue to maintain the quality of the databases and publications on financial accounts

• request their co-operation to meet users needs