Flow of Funds

Flow of funds accounts are a system of interrelated balance sheets for a nation, calculated periodically. There are two types of balance sheets: those showing

The sectors and instruments are listed below.

These balance sheets measure levels of assets and liabilities. From each balance sheet a corresponding flows statement can be derived by subtracting the levels data for the preceding period from the data for the current period. (In the statistical analysis of time series, this operation is known as "first differencing.") The change in a level item between two adjacent periods is known as a "fund flow"; hence the name for these accounts.

The flow of funds (FOF) accounts of the United States are prepared by the Flow of Funds section of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and published quarterly in a publication called the Z.1 Statistical Release. Current and historical releases available in pdf, csv, or xml format. Data frequency is annual from yearend 1945 and quarterly beginning in 1952Q1. Detailed interactive documentation is also available.

The flow of funds accounts follow naturally from double-entry bookkeeping; every financial asset is also a liability of some domestic or foreign human entity. A fundamental fact about any economic sector is its balance sheet, a breakdown of its physical and financial assets, and of its liabilities. The only physical assets noted in the FF accounts are those of private nonfinancial sectors.

Nonfinancial sectors:

Financial sector:

The UK flow of funds accounts are prepared by the Office for National Statistics in a series of matrices. The first tables will be published in Blue Book 2014, to be released in September 2014. They contain the sectors and instruments shown below:

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