## Russian Federation: The Russian Practices for Encouraging Coordination between National Accounts and Balance of Payments to Produce Informal Economy Data

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Russian Federation: The Russian Practices for Encouraging Coordination between National Accounts and Balance of Payments to Produce Informal Economy Data](https://www.imf.org/en/data/statistics/informal-economy-data/reports/russia-the-russian-practices-for-encouraging-coordination)

## Other formats

- [Markdown version](/en/data/statistics/informal-economy-data/reports/russia-the-russian-practices-for-encouraging-coordination/index.md)
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### Overview
- The Russian Federation describes a constant exchange of information between the Bank of Russia and the Statistics Service (which compiles the National Accounts and “Input-Output” Tables) to ensure uniform reflection of aggregates characterizing external economic activities across macroeconomic statistical systems.
- Balance of payments aggregates include estimates of unobserved, hidden, and informal activities and are used by National Accounts (SNA) compilers to improve SNA aggregates and “Input-Output” tables.

### Coordination mechanisms and reconciliation
- Balance of payments aggregates estimated by models are subject to:
  - Internal controls and reconciliation with other balance of payments components.
  - Additional verification when utilized in compiling SNA aggregates and “Input-Output” tables.
- When substantial imbalances arise between aggregates of goods’ resources and their use, SNA and balance of payments compilers conduct joint consultations and decide to:
  - Adjust the respective SNA aggregates, or
  - Correct the method and model for estimating merchandise imports not captured by customs statistics in cases of under- or over-valuation.

### Identity linking production, use, and external transactions
- The Russian Federation uses the fundamental identity of the goods and services account as the basis for judging adequacy of modeled estimates:
  - C = P – I – Ex + Im ± ΔSt
    - C is consumption;
    - P is production;
    - I is intermediate consumption;
    - Ex is exports;
    - Im is imports;
    - ΔSt is net change in merchandise stocks (in industry and trade).
- The volume of goods’ resources supplied through imports that are unregistered by customs statistics (hidden and informal merchandise imports) is determined as:
  - Im′ = C – (P – I – Ex) – Im ± ΔSt

### Model parameter adjustments and price coefficient use
- Correction of parameters of the model estimating hidden and informal merchandise imports is carried out by balance of payments compilers based on:
  - Comparison of coefficients for recalculating volumes of unobserved imported goods’ use from purchasers’ prices (retail prices) into imports FOB prices, with
  - The purchasers’ prices’ structure (final consumption prices) for imported goods determined from constructed extended “input-output” tables.
- Correlation between buyer (end-consumption) prices and basic prices for imported goods, calculated using data from extended “input-output” tables, is used to:
  - Introduce adjustments in the average annual coefficients for recalculating volumes of unobserved imported goods’ use from purchasers’ prices into imports FOB prices.
  - Use the obtained coefficients as basic parameters in the model until the next input-output data are received.

### Treatment of Travel services in SNA compilation
- Data on exports and imports of “Travel” services compiled within balance of payments are used by SNA compilers to construct the use of disposable income account.
- Treatment of household consumption:
  - Expenditure on end-consumption of resident households within the Russian Federation is augmented by adding resident households’ expenses related to imports of “Travel” services.
  - The result is diminished by nonresident households’ expenses in the Russian Federation reflected as “Travel” exports.
- Deflator indices:
  - “Travel” services’ exports and imports deflator indices calculated by external sector statistics compilers are used by SNA compilers for recalculating respective aggregates into comparable prices.

### Data production periodicity and quality objective
- Starting with the 2011 data, construction of extended “input-output” tables is carried out by the Statistics Service with a periodicity of once-in-5-years.
- The overall objective of the information exchange and comparative analysis is to improve the quality of both the conducted estimations and the statistics produced on the basis thereof.

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## References

- [Informal Economy Reports](https://www.imf.org/en/data/statistics/informal-economy-data/reports)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/data/statistics/informal-economy-data/reports/russia-the-russian-practices-for-encouraging-coordination_