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Association de comptabilité nationale and its conferences

ACN (Association de Comptabilité Nationale/National Accounting Association) was created in 1983 by INSEE and University Paris I. It became an association in 1992, in order to constitute a large forum, open to anyone with interest with the various aspects of national accounts.

Announcement of the 13th Conference of the Association de Comptabilité Nationale - To be held in Paris June 2,3,4 / 2010


Five sessions are organised.

Session 1 : Crisis, accounting standards and asset valuation

The normative debate regarding the valuation of assets and the recording of correlative changes in flows has livened up in recent years, among both private accountants and national accountants, especially in international circles (IASB, SNA2008). The financial crisis has brought new facts and new questions in the debate. First of all, the unanimous reference to "market value" becomes more questionable (it may result from a temporary "bubble", models used to fix this market value may be inadequate...). Secondly, accounting rules proved to be not only descriptive but retroacting with the business life and third party(with consequences on the display of profits, possibility of financing, the valuation of own funds...) in a way that depends on the economic sector.

In this context, national accountants may have to redefine their own goal. After an overview of the picture given by the financial accounts of the financial crisis, we have to examine possible improvements. To do this, it may be necessary to clarify what financial accounts want to describe (for example, what is their time horizon?) and what they are able to describe (for example, are they able to account for risks regarding the asset value?).

Prepared papers:

  • Financial bubbles
  • How do the balance sheet accounts present the crisis (international comparison paper)
  • Long term valuation in the insurance sector
  • Valuation of assets in balance sheets

Session 2 : Measuring production and value added in financial activities

Measuring the financial sector (financial intermediaries, insurances) is particularly a challenge for statisticians. There are implicit prices, some difficulties to define precisely the services produced by the sector units and the important part of holding gains and losses. A well-known subject is the calculation of the Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured and this session will take stock of the debate. The new 2008 SNA has also raised questions about the measurement of the output of insurances. and this deserves discussion. Finally all these measures of output at current prices are only one side of the coin and it is also important to look at measures at constant prices, and/or at the price indices used to deflate the values of output.

Prepared papers:

  • FISIM methodology : a proposition of the ECB
  • FISIM methodology : the point of view of the BEA
  • Value added versus banking accounting in the financial sector
  • Risk and income in the insurance sector

Session 3: Problems in the implementation of the SNA in African countries

With the publication of the new 2008 SNA, time is appropriate to see where National Accounts are in Africa about the implementation of the 1993 SNA. The difficulties are often firstly practical : few or inadequate resources, human as well as materials, gaps in the statistical system, but also political or economic crisis. Systemic difficulties to integrate balance of payments, produced by regional banks, and national accounts, in countries with a big external trade unbalance or with crucial remittances of foreign workers. Finally conceptual difficulties: measure of the informal sector, now expanded to include illegal activities, and the lag between the agricultural calendar and the civil year of the accounts.

Prepared papers:

  • Implementation of the 93 SNA in African countries (presentation by Afristat)
  • Implementation of the 93 SNA in Cameroon
  • Calculating National Accounts in a country under crisis ( Ivory coast)
  • Calculating National Accounts in a Sub-Saharan country ( Burkina-Faso)

Session 4 : After the Stiglitz Commission report, what evolutions for national accounting?

National accounts are more and more confronted to users' critics, as regards the adequacy of current measures of economic performance. Moreover, there are broader concerns about how defining measures of societal well-being, as well as measures of economic, environmental and social sustainability. The recently published Stiglitz Commission report, has presented recommendations on supplementary pieces of information to be produced and account framework's evolutions to be envisaged.

As accounting international and European manuals are being under review process (SNA,ESA for central accounts, SEEA for environmental accounts), this session aims at a stock taking exercise on these issues. Papers will present either theoretical reflections or some practical progresses that can be envisaged.

Prepared papers:

  • The Stiglitz Commission report and the official recommendations about ESA 2010, SEEA 2012
  • Distribution of Households accounts by categories
  • Distribution of Enterprises accounts by categories
  • National accounts in the future: an overall view

Session 5 : What representation for the production process?

National accountants are facing a real challenge to describe present economic developments, which are now taking place in a worldwide framework overflowing the usual national framework, as regards the production organisation, its financing, as well as its interaction with the environment. Producing national account figures in such a context requires coming back to the question of the representation of the production process: which production unit? for which description of the production process? for which description of the corresponding income, or environmental damages, generated?

Prepared papers:

  • Comments about the future representation of groups in the accounts
  • On the treatment of principals and contractors
  • Measurement and integration in the I-O tables of pollutant emissions (especially carbon dioxide CO2)
  • The capital services