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Overview

National Transfer Accounts data quantify how people at each age acquire and use economic resources to meet their current material needs, to share with others, and to provide for the future. When they are young and again when they are old, people consume more than they produce through their labor. This life cycle pattern is possible only because social institutions and economic mechanisms reallocate resources across age. Children and the elderly can rely on transfers, either through governments or families, primarily from working-age adults. And adults also rely on assets, including debt, to fund consumption.

The basic NTA data consist of economic flows for one or more recent years measured in nominal terms in the currency of each country. The accounts are constructed to be consistent, to the extent possible, with National Accounts data.

The NTA database provides access to the most up-to-date, detailed and comprehensive estimates. In addition:

  • Country reports are available for select countries. The reports are useful for understanding the structure of NTA.
  • Time-series indicators have been constructed using population estimates and projections in conjunction with NTA data to support better analysis of the effects of changing population age structure.
  • Cross-sectional indicators are based exclusively on NTA data and are useful for analyzing the cross-sectional relationship between population, development, and economic interactions.
  • Applications provide some innovative presentations of NTA data.

Attribution and Fair Use

Researchers based in universities, private research institutions, and government agencies have generously devoted an enormous amount of their valuable time to constructing NTA for their countries. Please take care to acknowledge their efforts by citing their work whenever possible. Documentation in the database provides information about appropriate citations. This is especially important for research that emphasizes one or only a few countries. When NTA data is being used in comparative analysis and acknowledging individual countries is not practical, an alternative is:

Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason, lead authors and editors (2011) Population Aging and the Generational Economy: A Global Perspective Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

In addition, the NTA website: www.ntaccounts.org and the date of accession should be indicated as well.

We would appreciate receiving a copy of any research that makes use of NTA (send email).

Updates and New Releases

The NTA database contains the most detailed and up-to-date NTA data that have been submitted by the NTA country teams. All NTA data are in the local currency unit and nominal. The database is updated continuously as new data becomes available.

Tips for Using the Database

NTA data is downloaded in a two-step process: 1) data selection; and 2) data downloading.

Data selection

First, the menu displayed below is used to select countries, variables, variable types, and years.

Second, a download screen will appear that allows you to download data or documentation. If no selection is made, all data are downloaded.

Country: Select one or more countries.

Variables: The variable menu is nested and expandable with more detailed variables accessed by clicking on the "arrow head" to the left of the parent variable.

  • Lifecycle: Consumption and labor income variables
  • Reallocations: Transfer and asset-based reallocation variables
  • Demographics: Go to Indicators to access and download selected conventional demographic indicators.
  • Indicators: Go to Indicators to access and download NTA indicators.

Variable type:

  • NTA: Aggregate data by age
  • Mean: Per capita, unsmoothed values (usually education variables are not smoothed.
  • Smooth Mean: Per capita, smoothed values.

Attributes Used to distinguish sub-groups of national populations. Currently estimates are available separately by sex for selected number of countries.

Country descriptors: Data downloads include country descriptors:

  • Region from UN Population Division
  • Income group from the World Bank based on 2016 income data
  • OECD countries
  • 2-digit ISO country codes
  • 3-digit ISO country codes

Country descriptors are found in the far-right-hand-side columns. Not available in the transposed downloads.

Data downloading

Data can be downloaded in one of two formats. "Download" produces the data in wide form with each age displayed in its own column. "Download (transposed)" produces the data in long form with each variable assigned to a separate column and each age assigned to its own row.

Database: Downloading detailed data

Select Countries:

Choose countries from drop-down box. Empty selection picks all countries.


Select Variables:

Selected variables:


Select Variable Types:

  • You can choose multiple variable types.
  • All types are searched when none is selected.
Select Year Range:
From: To: OR The latest year on or before:
Select Attribute(s):

Leave it empty to select records without attribtes.

Examples:

  • sex=male : Select records with specific attribute value.
  • sex=* : Select records with specific attribute, regardless of the value.
  • *=* : Select records that has any attributes.
  • * : Select all records, with and without attributes.
  • sex=female;residence=urban : You can specify multiple criteria by concatenating them with semicolons.

NTA Data Visualization: Compare countries, regions, and income groups

NTA data visualization

Interactive visual presentation of selected NTA data.

Database Contents

Database Contents displays a grid indicating the data that are available in the database. Selecting a country displays all variables for that country. Selecting a variable displays that variable for all countries in the database.

Note: A "0" indicates that the data is available; a "-" indicates that it is not.

By Country
By Variable

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