Indicators complementary to GDP: Environmental and social satellite accounts to the National Accounts

Résumé 0

When we want to complement GDP with other indicators in order to obtain a more complete representation of the quality of human life it is important that these indicators are comparable to GDP. This comparability can be guaranteed by deriving indicators from environmental and social satellite accounts to the national accounts. Social satellite accounts were the first to be developed, but environmental satellite accounts have developed at a faster pace, and are currently institutionalised to a higher degree. In Belgium, the Federal Planning Bureau, one of the institutions constituting the National Accounts Institute, is responsible for the production of satellite accounts to the national accounts. Next to the derivation of indicators which are comparable to GDP, these satellite accounts also serve as a consistent database for different types of analysis which combine monetary and physical data. The results of several applications of the Belgian environmental economic accounts are shown.