Talk:System of National Accounts

Hi, I'm learning economics. If this is an international standard, why isn't it coded by ISO and why is there no such a standard appear at www.iso.org?--222.67.208.228 (talk) 03:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason is that SNA has a different purpose. It is an international standard for a comprehensive, coherent, and internationally agreed set of macroeconomic accounting rules to describe and measure national economic activity so that internationally comparable data result.The ISO develops technical standards, as norms for industrial, commercial, and technological practices - across domains like quality control, environmental management, information security, etc. - for use by enterprises, engineers, manufacturers, and regulators. The UN and its intergovernmental partners are custodians of SNA, but nobody "owns" SNA, and the adoption of SNA standards is voluntary. ISO is a non-government organization which creates, paywalls and sells international standards commercially, and retains proprietary rights for ISO standards. DJJB621 (talk) 20:22, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Is the system of ISO different from the one of UN?--222.67.208.228 (talk) 03:40, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The ISO is institutionally completely separate from the UN, but, to a certain extent, the UN and ISO both do try to "harmonize" their standards, if that is feasible, important and useful. The ISO is a non-government organization. The UN is an intergovernmental organization. There is a certain "grey" area, for example because ISO norms are sometimes used in government laws (which causes some people to argue that the relevant ISO standards ought to be publicly accessible free of charge). But basically the ISO and the UN are different and separate legal entities, each with its own purpose and area of work. DJJB621 (talk) 20:30, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Rename

To an admin: Please rename the article, as since 1968(!) this is not the United Nation' system any longer, but maintained by the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Statistical Office of the European Communities now. System of National Accounts is the correct title.--Antemister (talk) 12:36, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

The name UNSNA has been scrapped as title in this wiki article in favour of System of National Accounts ("SNA" as title would be confusing because there are other organisations and activities using that abbreviation). DJJB621 (talk) 20:32, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 24 February 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Rick (talk) 18:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

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United Nations System of National Accounts → System of National Accounts – Former article "System of national accounts" has been moved to accommodate this important move. User:Antemister notes Please rename the article, as since 1968(!) this is not the United Nation' system any longer, but maintained by the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Statistical Office of the European Communities now. System of National Accounts is the correct title.-- Rick (talk) 05:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC) Rick (talk) 05:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC) Antemister is correct UN prefix is way out of date and misleading. Rick (talk) 05:53, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified

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Update?

An update - SNA 2025 - should have been adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission at its 56th session (March 4-7). The update is available at the SNA site: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/nationalaccount/SNAUpdate/2025/2025_SNA_Combined.pdf Bnulat (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

From what I understand, SNA 2025 is still in a draft stage but has been given de go-ahead by the UNSC. DJJB621(talk) 15:51, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Revert edits by Wi1-ch

I have reverted the edits by Wi1-ch. This person apparently has no wikipedia user account, or has an account with a different name, and just broke in here to deposit a bit of his poetry. It is mostly not clear what the relevance of the insertion is, and the information is not accurate. This article is about SNA, and not about national accounts in general (except insofar as it is understood that the national accounts being discussed refer to SNA accounts). There is room for a section on the history of SNA, but that should be about the formation of SNA and significant events in the last 70 years. There is a lot to say about that, and it merits a separate article, but in this article only a few important points can be made about the history. So far, some classic references to the history of national accounting were provided, but they have yet to be integrated into the text. DJJB621(talk) 23:13, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Completion of the revision of the SNA article

I have more or less completed the revision of this article now, and expanded it to include important SNA topics. I am aware that the size of the article is grown considerably. One ought to remember though that SNA is a very large global accounting system, and that it is the most important source of macroeconomic data in the world. SNA data continue to have a big influence on economic judgements and on politics across the world. What still needs to be done yet is the revision and referencing of wiki articles on SNA concepts, in line with SNA 2008/2025 DJJB621(talk) 00:23 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I had a look at Elon Musk's AI-generated Grokipedia article on System of National Accounts ( https://grokipedia.com/page/System_of_National_Accounts#system-of-national-accounts ). If you read that, you realize how important it is to have a good, clear and human-made wikipedia article on System of National Accounts! DJJB621(talk) 21:51 16 January 2026 (UTC)