## 4. United States: SNA-Based Household Sector Balance Sheet

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### Introduction
- Purpose: Illustrate how the System of National Accounts (SNA) can be used as a measurement framework to assess sustainable production, consumption, and meaningful jobs in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Key idea: Rather than redefining GDP, utilize the SNA’s broad framework — including stocks, transactions, revaluations, other flows, and net worth — to capture social and environmental developments and support policy objectives.
- Concept developed: a “super balance sheet” that combines physical and monetary assets by expanding the SNA asset boundary to include human capital, durable consumer goods used for household production, selected social wellbeing indicators, and the carbon footprint.

### The SDGs and what the SNA brings
- SDG facts:
  - 17 SDGs adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015.
  - SDGs broken into 169 targets and 304 indicators.
- Relevant SDGs emphasized:
  - Goal 8: economic growth and employment — specifies that GDP growth should be decoupled from environmental degradation and linked with sustainable production, consumption, and meaningful jobs.
  - Goal 12: sustainable consumption and production — calls for sustainable consumption and production plans integrated into national and sectoral plans, sustainable business practices and consumer behavior.
- Comparative/multidimensional measurement context:
  - The SNA offers a coherent, internationally agreed accounting standard intended to support economic policy making, analysis, and assessments with a focus on bottom-line indicators such as GDP, saving, disposable income, debt, and net worth.
  - Historical context: discussions on including social and demographic indicators in SNA date back to 1953 and were revisited in the 1968 SNA; full balance sheets were introduced in the 1993 edition; SEEA added in 2011/2012 to capture environmental assets.
- The SNA’s strengths for SDG analysis:
  - Presents full balance sheets and income statements for institutional sectors (households, financial corporations, non-financial corporations, government, nonprofit institutions serving households, plus rest of the world).
  - Enables tracing of wealth creation, accumulation, and distribution across sectors and over time.
  - Satellite accounts permit conceptual expansions (e.g., relax conventions on the asset boundary) while preserving core SNA principles.

### Household sector in the SNA and the expanded asset boundary
- Household centrality:
  - Consumption is the largest component of GDP (Table 2 values preserved).
- Household final consumption (Final Consumption, in percent of GDP, 2016):
  - World: 58.3
  - South Asia: 56.3
  - East Asia and Pacific: 49.4
  - Latin America & Caribbean: 65.3
  - Middle East and North Africa: 50.3
  - North America: 67.1
  - Europe and Central Asia: 56.3
  - Sub-Saharan Africa: 69.9
- SNA asset definition and limitations:
  - 2008 SNA asset definition: entities must be owned by some unit(s) and provide economic benefits by holding or using them over time (2008 SNA paragraph 1.46).
  - Exclusions under current SNA: services produced by households for own consumption; consumer durables treated as household final consumption expenditure (flows), not as stocks; human capital is not treated as an asset given difficulties of ownership and valuation.
  - Non-produced environmental assets pose ownership/valuation challenges; SEEA extends the SNA boundary by treating naturally occurring environmental assets as assets that may provide benefits to humanity (2012 SEEA).
- Rationale for extending the asset boundary:
  - Digitization and the sharing economy increase households’ production for market and exchange of services, making consumer durables and own-account services increasingly relevant as assets.
  - Overarching criterion suggested for extended assets: whether the entity can provide an economic benefit to the household (even if ownership is societal or unclear).

### Building the “Super Balance Sheet” (extended household balance sheet)
- Structure: Start from the SNA household balance sheet and expand to include selected social, human, durable, and environmental items to produce an expanded household net worth (the “Super Balance Sheet”).
- SNA prototype household balance sheet (asset/liability categories preserved exactly):
  - ASSETS — Financial assets:
    - Currency and Deposits
    - Equity (stocks, bonds, other securities)
    - Insurance reserves/Pension entitlements
    - Other financial assets
  - ASSETS — Non-financial assets:
    - Owner-occupied Dwellings
    - Other real property
    - Other non-financial assets
  - LIABILITIES:
    - Loans (Mortgage, credit card debt, student loans, other consumer loans)
    - Other liabilities
  - Net worth = ASSETS minus LIABILITIES
- “Super” balance sheet (items beyond the SNA framework marked by the source with an asterisk):
  - ASSETS — Financial assets:
    - Currency and Deposits (savings)
    - Equity (stocks, bonds, other securities)
    - Insurance reserves/Pension entitlements
    - Other financial assets
  - ASSETS — Non-financial assets:
    - Owner-occupied Dwellings
    - Other real property
    - Other non-financial assets
    - Consumer durables
    - Human capital
    - Access to energy (renewable) *
    - Access to water *
    - Access to clean air (air pollution emissions) *
    - Access to communication *
    - Access to transportation *
    - Access to other infrastructure *
    - Access to jobs *
  - LIABILITIES:
    - Loans (Mortgage, credit card debt, student loans, other consumer loans)
    - Other liabilities
  - Net worth (Super Balance Sheet) = Total assets (SNA assets plus extended assets) minus Total SNA liabilities
  - Note: * Denotes extensions beyond the SNA framework.
- Measurement implications and motivations:
  - Inclusion of consumer durables aligns with Canberra Group Handbook guidance treating services from consumer durables conceptually as income-producing (implying asset treatment).
  - Human capital measurement guidance exists (Guide to Measuring Human Capital, 2016) focusing on educational attainment and job-related training and recognizes own-account training as part of production boundary expansion.
  - SEEA provides definitions and a framework to integrate environmental asset stocks and physical flows with the monetary SNA framework.
  - The super balance sheet will generally increase the ratio of non-financial assets to financial assets and increase household net worth estimates relative to conventional SNA measures.
  - The super balance sheet allows presentation by region, gender, income/wealth distribution, and supports cross-country comparisons (subject to harmonization of included items and valuations).

### Data sources, feasibility, and next steps
- Data considerations:
  - Development of extended balance sheets requires a range of household-level activity data.
  - Data sources include household surveys, administrative records, digital traces, and geospatial information; digitization expands possibilities for detailed, high-frequency, and timely household information.
  - Household surveys are time-consuming and costly; administrative data may be more timely but limited in scope and accessibility.
  - The extended super balance sheet is best implemented as satellite accounts for the household sector, recognizing the need to relax some central SNA conventions when warranted by data availability.
- Practical approach:
  - Restrict the super balance sheet to produced assets and non-produced assets for which valuation is available.
  - Begin with a feasible set of extended assets/items and expand as data evolve.
  - Next step proposed: construct a super balance sheet using actual country data.

### Conclusions and policy relevance
- The SNA can accommodate a broad set of indicators relevant to the SDGs by expanding the production and asset boundaries in satellite accounts, yielding a more comprehensive gauge of sustainable economic growth, consumption, and production while accounting for natural resource use and environmental degradation.
- Policy insights captured by the super balance sheet:
  - Expanded net worth highlights the role of access to social and environmental assets in household welfare and future consumption potential.
  - Ownership of consumer durables enhances household capacity for household production and opportunities for “decent work” (linked to SDG Goal 8).
  - Environmental degradation and lack of meaningful work are reflected as lower net worth in the extended framework; conversely, higher sustainability indicators (e.g., access to water, energy) are associated with higher household net worth in the super balance sheet.
  - For global comparisons, the super balance sheet can highlight inequality in access to social and environmental assets across countries and over time (example: universal access to water in advanced economies vs. lack of access in parts of low-income countries).
- Final recommendation: proceed to develop and test a super balance sheet using country data, iteratively refining included items and valuation methods as data availability improves.

*Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/wp/2018/wp1841.pdf*

### References .............................................................................................................

### wp1841 - References .............................................................................................................

### References
- References ................................................................................................................................19

### Tables
- 1: SEEA Basic Environmental Assets Account .........................................................................8
- 2. Household Expenditure by Region ......................................................................................11
- 3. The SNA’s Household Balance Sheet (SNA Asset Boundary) ...........................................14
- 4. Beyond GDP: A “Super” Balance Sheet of Households (Extended Asset Boundary .........15

### Figures
- 1: United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) .....................................................6
- 2. The SNA Splits the Economy into Institutional Sectors ........................................................8
- 3. SNA - Measures of Wealth of Countries and Changes Over Time .....................................10

*https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/wp/2018/wp1841.pdf*

### 4. United States: SNA-Based Household Sector Balance Sheet..............................................12

### 4. United States: SNA-Based Household Sector Balance Sheet

### Introduction
- Purpose: Illustrate how the System of National Accounts (SNA) can be used as a measurement framework to assess sustainable production, consumption, and meaningful jobs in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Key idea: Rather than redefining GDP, utilize the SNA’s broad framework — including stocks, transactions, revaluations, other flows, and net worth — to capture social and environmental developments and support policy objectives.
- Concept developed: a “super balance sheet” that combines physical and monetary assets by expanding the SNA asset boundary to include human capital, durable consumer goods used for household production, selected social wellbeing indicators, and the carbon footprint.

### The SDGs and what the SNA brings
- SDG facts preserved from source:
  - 17 SDGs adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015.
  - SDGs broken into 169 targets and 304 indicators.
- Relevant SDGs emphasized:
  - Goal 8: economic growth and employment — specifies that GDP growth should be decoupled from environmental degradation and linked with sustainable production, consumption, and meaningful jobs.
  - Goal 12: sustainable consumption and production — calls for sustainable consumption and production plans integrated into national and sectoral plans, sustainable business practices and consumer behavior.
- Comparative/multidimensional measurement context:
  - The SNA offers a coherent, internationally agreed accounting standard intended to support economic policy making, analysis, and assessments with a focus on bottom-line indicators such as GDP, saving, disposable income, debt, and net worth.
  - Historical context: discussions on including social and demographic indicators in SNA date back to 1953 and were revisited in the 1968 SNA; full balance sheets were introduced in the 1993 edition; SEEA added in 2011/2012 to capture environmental assets.
- The SNA’s strengths for SDG analysis:
  - Presents full balance sheets and income statements for institutional sectors (households, financial corporations, non-financial corporations, government, nonprofit institutions serving households, plus rest of the world).
  - Enables tracing of wealth creation, accumulation, and distribution across sectors and over time.
  - Satellite accounts permit conceptual expansions (e.g., relax conventions on the asset boundary) while preserving core SNA principles.

### Household sector in the SNA and the expanded asset boundary
- Household centrality:
  - Consumption is the largest component of GDP (Table 2 values preserved below).
  - Households drive demand for durable goods, nondurable goods, services, and hold key assets (dwellings).
- Household final consumption (Final Consumption, in percent of GDP, 2016) — exact figures from Table 2:
  - World: 58.3
  - South Asia: 56.3
  - East Asia and Pacific: 49.4
  - Latin America & Caribbean: 65.3
  - Middle East and North Africa: 50.3
  - North America: 67.1
  - Europe and Central Asia: 56.3
  - Sub-Saharan Africa: 69.9
- SNA asset definition and limitations:
  - 2008 SNA asset definition: entities must be owned by some unit(s) and provide economic benefits by holding or using them over time (2008 SNA paragraph 1.46).
  - Exclusions under current SNA: services produced by households for own consumption; consumer durables treated as household final consumption expenditure (flows), not as stocks; human capital is not treated as an asset given difficulties of ownership and valuation.
  - Non-produced environmental assets pose ownership/valuation challenges; SEEA extends the SNA boundary by treating naturally occurring environmental assets as assets that may provide benefits to humanity (2012 SEEA).
- Rationale for extending the asset boundary:
  - Digitization and the sharing economy increase households’ production for market and exchange of services, making consumer durables and own-account services increasingly relevant as assets.
  - Overarching criterion suggested for extended assets: whether the entity can provide an economic benefit to the household (even if ownership is societal or unclear).

### Building the “Super Balance Sheet” (extended household balance sheet)
- Structure: Start from the SNA household balance sheet and expand to include selected social, human, durable, and environmental items to produce an expanded household net worth (the “Super Balance Sheet”).
- SNA prototype household balance sheet (asset/liability categories preserved exactly):
  - ASSETS — Financial assets:
    - Currency and Deposits
    - Equity (stocks, bonds, other securities)
    - Insurance reserves/Pension entitlements
    - Other financial assets
  - ASSETS — Non-financial assets:
    - Owner-occupied Dwellings
    - Other real property
    - Other non-financial assets
  - LIABILITIES:
    - Loans (Mortgage, credit card debt, student loans, other consumer loans)
    - Other liabilities
  - Net worth = ASSETS minus LIABILITIES
- “Super” balance sheet (items beyond the SNA framework marked by the source with an asterisk):
  - ASSETS — Financial assets: (same as SNA)
    - Currency and Deposits (savings)
    - Equity (stocks, bonds, other securities)
    - Insurance reserves/Pension entitlements
    - Other financial assets
  - ASSETS — Non-financial assets: (SNA + extended)
    - Owner-occupied Dwellings
    - Other real property
    - Other non-financial assets
    - Consumer durables
    - Human capital
    - Access to energy (renewable) *
    - Access to water *
    - Access to clean air (air pollution emissions) *
    - Access to communication *
    - Access to transportation *
    - Access to other infrastructure *
    - Access to jobs *
  - LIABILITIES:
    - Loans (Mortgage, credit card debt, student loans, other consumer loans)
    - Other liabilities
  - Net worth (Super Balance Sheet) = Total assets (SNA assets plus extended assets) minus Total SNA liabilities
  - Note: * Denotes extensions beyond the SNA framework.
- Measurement implications and motivations:
  - Inclusion of consumer durables aligns with Canberra Group Handbook guidance treating services from consumer durables conceptually as income-producing (implying asset treatment).
  - Human capital measurement guidance exists (Guide to Measuring Human Capital, 2016) focusing on educational attainment and job-related training and recognizes own-account training as part of production boundary expansion.
  - SEEA provides definitions and a framework to integrate environmental asset stocks and physical flows with the monetary SNA framework.
  - The super balance sheet will generally increase the ratio of non-financial assets to financial assets and increase household net worth estimates relative to conventional SNA measures.
  - The super balance sheet allows presentation by region, gender, income/wealth distribution, and supports cross-country comparisons (subject to harmonization of included items and valuations).

### Data sources, feasibility, and next steps
- Data considerations from the source:
  - Development of extended balance sheets requires a range of household-level activity data.
  - Data sources include household surveys, administrative records, digital traces, and geospatial information; digitization expands possibilities for detailed, high-frequency, and timely household information.
  - Household surveys are time-consuming and costly; administrative data may be more timely but limited in scope and accessibility.
  - The extended super balance sheet is best implemented as satellite accounts for the household sector, recognizing the need to relax some central SNA conventions when warranted by data availability.
- Practical approach:
  - Restrict the super balance sheet to produced assets and non-produced assets for which valuation is available.
  - Begin with a feasible set of extended assets/items and expand as data evolve.
  - Next step proposed by the source: construct a super balance sheet using actual country data.

### Conclusions and policy relevance
- The SNA can accommodate a broad set of indicators relevant to the SDGs by expanding the production and asset boundaries in satellite accounts, yielding a more comprehensive gauge of sustainable economic growth, consumption, and production while accounting for natural resource use and environmental degradation.
- Policy insights captured by the super balance sheet:
  - Expanded net worth highlights the role of access to social and environmental assets in household welfare and future consumption potential.
  - Ownership of consumer durables enhances household capacity for household production and opportunities for “decent work” (linked to SDG Goal 8).
  - Environmental degradation and lack of meaningful work are reflected as lower net worth in the extended framework; conversely, higher sustainability indicators (e.g., access to water, energy) are associated with higher household net worth in the super balance sheet.
  - For global comparisons, the super balance sheet can highlight inequality in access to social and environmental assets across countries and over time (example: universal access to water in advanced economies vs. lack of access in parts of low-income countries).
- Final recommendation from the source: proceed to develop and test a super balance sheet using country data, iteratively refining included items and valuation methods as data availability improves.

*Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/wp/2018/wp1841.pdf*

### REFERENCES

### REFERENCES

### Measurement frameworks and national accounts
- European Commission, IMF, OECD, United Nations, and World Bank. 2009. System of National Accounts 2008. New York, United Nations.
- European Commission, FAO, IMF, OECD, United Nations, and World Bank, 2014. System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Central Framework, 2012
- Lequiller, F. and D. Blades, Understanding National Accounts, 2nd edition: OECD Publishing.
- Nordhaus W.D. and J. Tobin (1973) “Is Growth Obsolete?” in “The Measurement of Economic and Social Performance, Studies in Income and Wealth, National Bureau of Economic Research, Vol. 38.
- Stone, Richard (1975) System of Social and Demographic Statistics, United Nations, 1975
- Stone, Richard, 1984, Economic Sciences, Nobel Memorial Lecture-The Accounts of Society.
- United Nations, 1968, System of National Accounts 1968, Studies in Methods, Series F No 2, New York.
- United Nations, 1975. Towards a System of Social and Demographic Statistics, Studies in Methods, Series F No 8, New York.

### Human capital, household wealth, and wellbeing measurement
- Boarini, R., G. Liu, M. Mira d'Ercole, 2012, “Approaches to Measuring the Stock of Human Capital: A Review of Country Practice,” OECD Statistics Working Papers, No. 2012/04.
- Fraumeni, B. M., G. Liu, 2014, “Human capital measurement: country experiences and international initiatives,” In D. Jorgenson, K. Fukao, & M. Timmer (Eds.), “The World Economy: Growth or Stagnation?”
- Hamilton, K, G. Liu, 2013, “Human Capital, Tangible Wealth and the Intangible capital residual,” OECD Working Paper, No. 51.
- Liu, G., 2011, “Measuring the stock of human capital for comparative analysis: An application of the lifetime income approach to selected countries", OECD Working Paper, No. 41.
- Helliwell, J., R. Layard, J. Sachs, 2017, “World Happiness Report 2017,” New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
- Klenow, P. J, C.I. Jones, 2016, “Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time,” American Economic Review, 106(9) pp. 2426–2457.
- OECD, 2013, OECD Guidelines for Micro Statistics on Household Wealth, OECD Publishing.
- Shorrocks, A., Davies, J., Lluberas, R., Koutsoukis, A. 2016, “Global Wealth Report 2016,” Credit Suisse AG, Zurich.
- United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 1990, "Human Development Report," (New York: Oxford University Press).
- World Bank, 2011, “The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium” World Bank Group.

### Environmental accounting, infrastructure, and SDG measurement
- Hutton, G., M. Varughese, 2016, “The Costs of Meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal Targets on Drinking Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene,” Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group.
- Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Durand-Delacre, D., and Teksoz, K. (2016) SDG Index and Dashboards – Global Report. New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Netwoek (SDSN).
- United Nations, 2015, “The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015,” New York.
- United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), 2015, Interagency Expert Group on SDG Indicators https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/iaeg-sdgs.

### Data initiatives, big data, and surveys
- Data Gaps Initiative (DGI), 2016 Second Phase of the G-20 Data Gaps Initiative, First Progress Report. Prepared by the Staff of the IMF and FSB Secretariat.
- FSB, IMF, 2017, “FSB and IMF Report on Progress with G20 Data Gaps Initiative (DGI-2),” Second Progress Report.
- Hammer, C. Kostroch, D., and Quiros G., 2017, “Big Data: Potential, Challenges, and Statistical Implications” IMF Staff Discussion Note (SDN/06/17).
- European Central Bank, 2016, “The Household Finance and Consumption Survey: Results from the Second Wave,” ECB Statistics, No 18.
- International Association of Research on Income and Wealth (IARIW), 2015 IARIW-OECD Special Conference on “W(h)ither the SNA?”
- UNECE, 2011, The Canberra Group Handbook on Household Income Statistics, Geneva.
- UNECE, 2016, “Guide on Measuring Human Capital,” Conference of European Statisticians.

### Other reports, articles, and lectures
- Doyle, D., 2014, “GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History,” Princeton University Press.
- Doyle, D., 2017, “Rethinking GDP,” Finance and Development, Vol. 54, No. 1, March.
- Deutsche Bundesbank, 2003, “Monthly Report,” Deutsche Bundesbank, Vol. 55, No. 7.
- Frecaut, Olivier, 2017, “Systemic banking crises: completing the enhanced policy responses,” Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance. Vol. 25 Issue: 4, pp.381-395.
- Harrison, Ann, 2006, “Clarification on Chapter XXI on Satellite Accounts,” 4th Meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts, Frankfurt, SNA/M1.06/37. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/iswgna.asp.
- Stiglitz J. E., A. Sen, J. Fitoussi, 2009, “Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.”
- World Bank, 2016, “World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends,” Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group.

*Source: wp1841 - REFERENCES*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/wp/2018/wp1841.pdf_