Serbia's Economy: The Stylized Facts 2000-2005

Stylized Facts is a comprehensive assessment of Serbia's key macroeconomic statistics and aggregates, an essential compendium of economic information that can be derived with reasonable certainty, and a reassessment of the GDP level and expenditure structure. It covers key price, exchange rate, production and output data, as well as all publicly available fiscal, monetary and external sector data. It documents the data and presents it in analytically useful formats; it also documents the collection methodologies and catalogues key weaknesses; it points to inconsistencies among the series and provides an assessment, where possible, of the likely actual dimensions of the aggregates.

We discriminate between the more and the less likely or reliable aspects of the data, arriving at conclusions that in some key features differ substantially from the received wisdom. This is based on the identification of the problematic as well as the more reliable aspects of the data production process, and on the cross-validation of alternative and independent data sources. We use our observations to deepen the understanding of Serbia's economic structure and the processes that shaped it in the recent past.

The main report focuses on the national accounts data and revises the official GDP level and expenditure structure, providing a new macro framework for the analysis of the sustainability of Serbia's economic structure, its macroeconomic policy design, and the effects of policy on the economy of Serbia.

The five appendices to this study provide in-depth analyses of certain aspects of the Serbian economy and are documented in:

• Appendix I titled "Gross Value Added of Serbia's Enterprise Sector: 2001-2004" presents a detailed analysis of the production, value added, wages and productivity information that can be derived from the financial reports. This data is in fact a key input in the production of the SNA GDP level figures, providing the source for the output of the non-financial sector in the official statistics. Understanding it makes for better understanding of the official SNA data. The appendix also contains an analysis of the behavior of different components of this aggregate—according to ownership structure and company size—in addition to the usual analysis by production sector.


• Appendix II titled "Macroeconomic Developments in Serbia: 2001-2004" presents the stylized facts of macroeconomic policy and stabilization in the title period. The focus of this appendix is on developments primarily in the fiscal and monetary areas.


• Appendix III titled "Analysis of Investment in Serbia in 2003 and 2004" presents a detailed analysis of the official statistics compilation methods for investment data. It points to the problems in the compilation methodology that resulted in inadequate official data and provides independent estimates of the investment levels in 2003 and 2004.


• Appendix IV titled "Serbia: Key Macroeconomic Data, 2001-2005" documents in detail the compilation methodologies, issues and the data itself for all key macroeconomic data and aggregates. These are: in the real sector, data on prices, production (focusing on the quarterly GDP in constant prices, industrial production, construction, transport, storage and communication, and agricultural production), wages and employment; in the external sector, a detailed monthly BOP and external trade; the monetary sector data covers detailed monthly balance sheets for commercial banks (aggregated) and the National Bank of Serbia; and fiscal data, as publicly available, for each level of government and the social funds.


• Finally, Appendix V titled "An Assessment of the Household Sector Accounts in the Republic of Serbia, 2003" reports on a bridging exercise conducted between official National Accounts (SNA), the Serbian Bureau of Statistics (SBS) Household Budget Survey and a Living Standards Measurement Survey conducted for Serbia by the World Bank.

The authors of this study are: Kori Udovički, Stojan Stamenković, Pavle Petrović, Miladin Kovačević, Ivan Nikolić, Katarina Stanić, Duško Vasiljević, Danko Brčerević, Dejan Kovjenić, Jelena Ždrale, Goran Radosavljević, Vuk Djoković, Boris Najman and Gerard Duchêne.

Download all appendices: SF_Vol_II_Appendices_Final_31JAN (.pdf) (1.5 MB)