This comprehensive manual is the result of an intensive and unprecedented collaboration of five organizations - the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union, with input from some 200 experts worldwide in a variety of statistical and economic fields. It portrays and describes the conceptual and accounting framework of the new and revised recommendations prepared to meet the need for more effective national and global economic policy-making well into the 21st century.