Home

About NTA

Methodology

NTA Countries

Publications

Meetings and Presentations

-

External Links

CEDA

East-West Center

UN ECLAC NTA

NUPRI

-

Contact Us

Overview

In National Transfer Accounts the public sector is an intermediary that compels reallocations across age groups and time. As with the private sector, public reallocations can be in the form of asset reallocations and in the form of transfers. The public sector includes the transactions of general government, including the central, state or regional, and local government entities.

The public sector creates asset reallocations in two important ways - by investing in public capital and by creating public credit. When the government invests in public capital - building a school, for example - current production is used to create a flow of services in the future. Resources are also shifted across age groups to the extent that the beneficiaries of the investment differ from the taxpayers who funded the public investment.

The government engages in public credit transactions when it borrows and lends funds to investors. These transactions reallocate resources because programs funded through deficit financing provide goods, services, and/or cash to beneficiaries by obligating current and future taxpayers who must pay interest on the public debt and/or repay the public debt.

Public transfers encompass all goods and services and all cash transfers provided to individuals. Age reallocations occur to the extent that the beneficiaries of such programs belong to different age groups than the taxpayers who fund them.

Governments engage in some activities that are not relevant to National Transfer Accounts: services provided for a fee to consumers or to businesses; regulatory activities; the operation of state owned enterprise; others? Any surplus generated by these and similar activities is treated as a tax.

Public Sector Budget Identity

Public sector transactions are governed by a budget identity. Outflows consist of the sum of in-kind transfers, cash transfers, investment, and interest payments on public debt. Inflows consist of taxes. The budget deficit is the balancing item.

Sub-Sectors

Data Sources

Other content?