Increasing globalisation of the world’s business economy presents challenges to compilers of official statistics when producing consistent economic accounts. This paper examines two inconsistencies between national accounts and balance of payments – firstly, in the measurement of depreciation of intellectual property products, and secondly, in the recording of expenditure on research and development (R&D) services. These inconsistencies can lead to sizeable discrepancies in net factor flows in the national accounts. Business data collected by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland is used to measure the divergence between the balance of payments and national accounts. The findings suggest that it is necessary to adjust the balance of payments data related to intellectual property products and R&D services to ensure consistency with national accounting methodology.

Citation: Holton, N., Kinsella, M., Mangan, O., McLaughlin, S. & Quill, P. (2020). Consistency in a Globalised Economy: Aligning the Treatment of R&D in the Irish National Accounts and Balance of Payments. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 517-518-519, 191–204. https://doi.org/10.24187/ecostat.2020.517t.2025