SNA Supply-Use and Input-Output 1: Goods and Services Account

The goods and services account shows, both for groups of products and for the total economy, how the total of products available (supplied) is equal to the total of products used. The main equation is;

Output + Import = Intermediate consumption + Final consumption + Gross capital formation + Export

Goods and services are traced through the economy from their original producers (resident or abroad) to their users. Compiling detailed flows is refereed to as the commodity-flow method, utilizing basic statistics on products with the additional items required for proper valuation. Full power of the commodity-flow method is reached when independent estimates are made for each item of the uses, the distribution of the supply of the item for private consumption, intermediate consumption, export or capital formation, as well as for the supply of the product. Reconciliation of the supply and use side is essential. However, the method applied will in most cases be less sophisticated, and one of the uses - in most cases household consumption or changes in inventories - will be derived residually as a result of lack of information about the uses.