Nonmarket services : Overview of Eurostat and OECD activities

1
Non-market services Overview of Eurostat and
OECD activities

• Paul Konijn, EurostatAlain Gallais, OECD
• London, 3-5 October 2006

2
National accounts developments

• 1998 Eurostat Task Forces on health, education
  and collective services
• current (input) methods do not allow for changes
  in productivity gt impact on GDP volume measures
• Volume measures regained interest due to
  increased importance for economic and monetary
  policy

3
National accounts developments (2)

• 2001 Eurostat Handbook on Price and Volume
  Measures preference for output methods for
  non-market services, in line with SNA93 and ESA95
• 2002 Commission Decision 2002/990 remove input
  methods for health and education by 2006
• See presentations in sessions 2 and 5 on current
  state of implementation in EU and projects in
  OECD countries

4
Education

• Handbook defines output as quantity of teaching
  received by students, adjusted for quality, for
  each type of education
• Proposed quantity measure numbers of pupil-hours
  or pupils

5
Health

• Handbook defines output as quantity of health
  care received by patients, adjusted for quality,
  for each type of health care
• Proposed quantity measure numbers of complete
  treatments

6
Collective services

• No obligation to remove input methods

7
International comparisons

• Eurostat-OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP)
  program input methods are used for all
  non-market services
• Salaries of civil servants are compared across
  countries -gt assumption of equal productivity
• Project of better taking into account skill
  levels and consistency with national accounts

8
International comparisons (2)

• Eurostat-OECD Task Force on non market services,
  composed of NA and PPP experts, is now
  investigating use of output methods for
  comparisons of education and health services
• Can the same concepts applied in the NA also be
  applied to PPPs?
• Recommendations expected in 2007

9
Education and health, international,ideas for
output methods

• Education
• international databases of pupil/student numbers
  available
• Looking at PISA and similar studies for possible
  quality adjustments, outcome-based.
• Health
• Large differences in health systems and data
  availability. Several possibilities, still to
  explore.
• Consider market and non-market output together?

10
OECD non market project

• To develop more detailed international guidelines
  for the development of volume measures of
  non-market output, both temporal and spatial, in
  particular for education and health, from April
  2006 to September 2007
• 2 workshops London, October 2006 and Paris,
  June 2007
• an OECD Statistical Manual to be published at end
  2007
• Contribution to PPP-NA Task Force on non market
  services and to upcoming health-specific PPP Task
  Force

11
OECD Health-specific PPP project

• Would take over from present NA-PPP Task Force on
  non market services at the beginning of 2007.
  Eurostat would be closely associated. More health
  experts.
• two purposes
• - (i) provide a tool for the analysis of the
  volume of health expenditure in OECD and EU
  countries. This objective is complementary to
  other data projects in the field of health
  accounts with a view to improving the information
  base for health policy makers
• - (ii) provide input to the broader purpose of
  deriving economy-wide PPPs for international
  comparisons of volume GDP