Key figures by sector; National Accounts

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Description topics

General government (consolidated)

The general government sector primarily consists of all entities that exercise national executive, legislative and judiciary powers on a national or regional level. By this they have powers to raise taxes and other compulsory levies and to pass laws affecting the behaviour of economic units. In the Netherlands this concerns the State, municipalities, provinces, public water boards and the like. In the second place general government consists of entities that are controlled and mainly financed by the aforementioned entities, and do not produce for the market. Such entities are often established to carry out specific functions, such as road construction or the non-market production of health, education or research services. In this way, for instance, Prorail and the Open University are counted to the general government.
Government institutions that are active abroad, like embassies, belong to the general government sector as well. On the other hand foreign embassies and international institutions, like Europol and the International Court of Justice, do not belong to the Dutch government.

The Dutch Central Bank (DNB), the Dutch railways (NS), hospitals and power companies are not part of the general government sector. But also some independent governing bodies like the land registry (Kadaster). To some extent they are controlled by the government. However, their goods and services are largely financed through tariffs, and thus it is a case of market production.

The general government sector is split up into three subsectors: central government, local government and social security funds.

The principal economic functions of government are as follows:
- to provide goods and services to the community, either for collective consumption such as public administration, defence, and law enforcement, or individual consumption such as education, health, recreation and cultural services, and to finance their provision out of taxation or other incomes;
- to redistribute income and wealth by means of transfer payments such as taxes and social benefits;
- to engage in other types of non-market production.

Total expenditure

Total expenditure of the Government. These expenditures include the remuneration of employees, intermediate consumption, fixed capital formation, legal social insurance, social benefits, subsidies, benefits legal provision income property, other expenditure n.e.c. (taxes on production and not related to products, benefits directly by employers, other current transfers, capital transfers, balance buying and selling of non-produced non-financial assets).
Consumption of fixed capital is not included in the expenditure.
The total expenditure of the Government per quarter as a percentage of GDP is a moving annual total. It is calculated as the total expenditure of the Government for the quarterly report plus the previous three quarters, divided by the GDP in the quarterly report plus the previous three quarters. The figure for the fourth quarter is equal to the annual figure.

Households including NPISHs

Households including non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH)

The households sector consists of individuals or groups of individuals as consumers and as entrepreneurs producing market goods and non-financial and financial services (market producers) provided that the production of goods and services is not by separate entities treated as quasi-corporations. It also includes individuals or groups of individuals as producers of goods and non-financial services for exclusively own final use.
The sector households includes all natural persons who are resident for more than one year in the Netherlands, irrespective of their nationality. On the other hand Dutch citizens who stay abroad for longer than one year do not belong to the Dutch sector households.
The sector households does not only cover independently living persons, but also persons in nursing homes, old people's homes, prisons, boarding schools, etc. If persons are entrepreneurs, their business also belongs to the sector households. This is the case for self-employed persons (one-man business). Large autonomous unincorporated enterprises (quasi-corporations) are included in the sector non-financial or financial corporations.

The non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs) sector consists of non-profit institutions which are separate legal entities, which serve households and which are private non-market producers. Their principal resources are voluntary contributions in cash or in kind from households in their capacity as consumers, from payments made by general government and from property income.
Examples are religious organisations, charity organisations, political parties, trade unions and cultural, sports and recreational organisations.

Final consumption expenditure

Expenditure on goods or services that are used for the direct satisfaction of individual or collective needs. Expenses may be made at home or abroad, but they are always made by resident institutional units, that is households or institutions residing in the Netherlands. By definition only households, non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs) and government institutions consume. Enterprises do not: expenses they make on goods and services are thought to serve production and are therefore classified as intermediate consumption of fixed capital formation. The general government is a special case. The government also has intermediate consumption, just like enterprises. But the output delivered by the government which is not directly paid for, non-market output (like safety), is classified as consumption by the general government. It is said that the government 'consumes its own production'. The system of national accounts demands that all that is produced is also consumed (or serves as an investment). By convention, government output is consumed by the government itself. This is not the only consumption by the general government. It also contains social transfers in kind. In the Netherlands this mainly concerns health care bills paid for by the government and an allowance for the rent.