In the past, there have been several projects to include distributional aspects in the national accounts framework. Household distributional information will also be covered in the forthcoming version of the System of National Accounts as well as the G20 Data Gaps initiative, which sets household distributional information as a priority. The starting point of this paper is to discuss how pensions are treated and how they could be included in the Distributional Wealth Accounts (DWA), an experimental quarterly dataset currently under development by the European System of Central Banks. DWA integrates the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) with national accounts' household balance sheets. The first results of this project have been published for the general public in January 2024. The results cover almost the complete balance sheet of households, but one of the missing main household wealth categories is pensions. The main reason is that because pension systems vary greatly between different European countries, consistent treatment and linkage are complicated by limitations in the underlying data sources. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the treatment of pensions in the national accounts and wealth surveys and to establish the linkage between the HFCS and national accounts concerning the pension stocks and transactions. The paper discusses the complete pension system: social security pensions as well as employment-related pension schemes other than social security. As the pensions systems differ between European countries, the paper additionally discusses the economic impact of different systems.
Citation: Ilja Kristian Kavonius. Pension in the national accounts and wealth surveys: how do they impact economic measures?[J]. National Accounting Review, 2025, 7(1): 1-27. doi: 10.3934/NAR.2025001
In the past, there have been several projects to include distributional aspects in the national accounts framework. Household distributional information will also be covered in the forthcoming version of the System of National Accounts as well as the G20 Data Gaps initiative, which sets household distributional information as a priority. The starting point of this paper is to discuss how pensions are treated and how they could be included in the Distributional Wealth Accounts (DWA), an experimental quarterly dataset currently under development by the European System of Central Banks. DWA integrates the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) with national accounts' household balance sheets. The first results of this project have been published for the general public in January 2024. The results cover almost the complete balance sheet of households, but one of the missing main household wealth categories is pensions. The main reason is that because pension systems vary greatly between different European countries, consistent treatment and linkage are complicated by limitations in the underlying data sources. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the treatment of pensions in the national accounts and wealth surveys and to establish the linkage between the HFCS and national accounts concerning the pension stocks and transactions. The paper discusses the complete pension system: social security pensions as well as employment-related pension schemes other than social security. As the pensions systems differ between European countries, the paper additionally discusses the economic impact of different systems.
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 NAR-07-01-001-S001.pdf |
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Ilja Kristian Kavonius. Pension in the national accounts and wealth surveys: how do they impact economic measures?[J]. National Accounting Review, 2025, 7(1): 1-27. doi: 10.3934/NAR.2025001
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