Updating the recording of the central bank output in the Norwegian National Accounts

Abstract

This document presents a description of updating the treatment of the Norwegian central bank output in both the Supply and Use tables (SUTs) and the institutional sector accounts, more in line with the international standards in this regard. A new market product representing management services provided to the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) is introduced in the central bank’s output. The estimated value of such management services is found to be positively correlated with the market value development of the GPFG over the period 2000-2020, which makes sense. The new market output leads to an augment of inventory. As a result, GDP increases with the same amount. However, the impact on GDP is not very significant, with the percentage changes, both for the whole Norwegian economy and for the Mainland Norway, being under 0.2% over the period 2000-2020. The updated central bank nonmarket output is allocated to other financial intermediaries as intermediate consumption in the SUTs, and the respective values are registered as current transfers in the institutional sector accounts. Without the registration of such current transfers as it is the case in the current institutional sector accounts, some important indicators such as saving, net lending/borrowing for both the central bank and the relevant financial intermediaries are measured with bias.