Manual on regional accounts methods : 2013 edition

Regional accounts play an important role in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of regional policies. In particular regional indicators resulting from the regional accounts are used for assessing regional disparities. In the context of the European cohesion policy, regional gross domestic product (GDP) is an indicator of the regional accounts by industry, used to allocate funds to eligible regions. The regional accounts are a regional specification of the national accounts. This manual provides a combined update of the two former regional manuals 'Regional accounts methods, gross value added and gross fixed capital formation by activity' of 1995 and 'Household accounts' of 1996, in line with the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010), chapter 13, Regional accounts. This manual has two objectives. Firstly, to provide guidelines to ensure comparable, consistent and sound statistical results and secondly, to give users a better idea of the problems encountered and solutions developed, to enable an appropriate use of the regional statistical results.