Definition: Institutional sectors

Quarterly national accounts

Institutional units are economic entities that are capable of owning goods ad assets, of incurring liabilities in economic activities and transactions with other units in their own right. For the purposes of the system, the institutional units are grouped into six mutually exclusive institutional sectors composed of the following types of units:

 - non financial corporations;
 - financial corporations;
 - general government;
 - households;
 - non-profit institution serving households (NPISHs);
 - rest of the world.

The first five sectors together make up the total economy. For our purposes in quarterly accounts we simplify this breakdown into four macro-sectors defined as follows:

 - corporations;
 - general government;
 - household sector (including NPISHs);
 - rest of the world.