bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
AN INDEX NUMBER APPROACH TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OF CONSUMPTION: WESTERN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES*
Authors: Toda Yasushi
Published: March 2005

The quantity index comparing the per capita consumption of one country vis‐à‐vis the other often gives widely different figures, depending on which country's prices are used as “weights”. In this paper, this gap between two quantity indexes is divided into a substitution effect and an income effect by assuming common tastes between nations. For this division, we estimate the points of over‐compensated variation and under‐compensated variation in income from Gilbert and Kravis’data.

The results of our estimation show that the income effect is smaller than the substitution effect. But the sign of the income effect indicates that this effect is generally in the same direction as the difference between two quantity indexes. Translated into the Bortkiewicz covariance, this means that the income elasticities are inversely related to the relative prices; the higher the income elasticity of a good, the lower is its price in the high income country relative to the low income country.

Since we only approximate the points of exactly compensated variation in income, we cannot estimate “true” quantity indexes. However, our result implies that the two indexes in Gilbert and Kravis’data do form the upper and lower boundaries to the true index‐numbers.
EFFECTS OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE ON PRODUCTION, INCOMES AND EMPLOYMENT IN FINLAND
Authors: Forssell Osmo
Published: March 2005

This study examines the effects of public expenditure on production activity and private consumption activity. An input‐output model with consumption functions connected is used for evaluating the repercussions of public expenditure. Taking both production and consumption repercussions into account, it is concluded that in the year 1965 public expenditure generated 26 percent of domestic incomes and 18 percent of imports. Viewed in terms of the shares of different types of income generated, 72 percent of public expenditure goes to domestic income, and the remaining 28 percent to imports. Forty‐five percent of public expenditure returns directly as income to general government. The study also examines the effects of public expenditure by industry and over time (1959 to 1965).
NATIONAL ACCOUNTING AS A PLANNING TOOL IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE
Authors: Barkay Richard M.
Published: March 2005

This paper is directed at the following question: How far is the national accounting system as developed in the industrially advanced countries and recommended by the United Nations applicable and useful to countries at an early stage of development? In order to examine the suitability of this tool, the nature of economic policy decisions and their dependence on macro‐statistical constructs are analysed, the emphasis being on planning as actually undertaken in the field or going to be undertaken in the near future and not on planning activities as possibly ought to be attempted. The conclusion reached, based upon personal experience in Africa, the Caribbean area, Brazil and Venezuela, both as “producer” and “user” of data, is that planning is mainly limited to the public sector. Comprehensive plans, prepared with the assistance of foreign consultants, were generally forgotten soon after publication, the driving force behind those plans being external pressure by bilateral donors and international agencies and propaganda‐prestige motives. Real over‐all economic management or consistent medium term planning of the whole economy never appeared to be an important factor in the decision‐making process, possibly because those concepts are far too abstract and do not have short‐term impact.

The role of national accounting should therefore be limited to the provision of a general framework and factual support for public sector planning activities. In practice the United Nations system has been found far too complicated and ambitious, not sufficiently development planning oriented, and not suitable to the limited statistical resources available in the developing countries.

The paper recommends the publication of several detailed “case studies” in national accounting, hoping that those studies might help to identify types of accounting systems appropriate to different existing constellations. In the meantime a drastic scaling down of the United Nations system should be undertaken; we should try to equate demand and supply of relevant information.

In the final part, the paper considers planning requirements (timetable and flexibility, information required for a general assessment of the economy, crucial role of the publicsector, relative precision), statistical requirements (resources, data available, priorities, international reporting) and decision‐makers’requirements (compactness, simplicity, background information, wishes of external aid donors) and recommends, as an interim measure, a simplified system of national accounts consisting of eight main tables.
ASSESSING THE QUALITY ERROR IN OUTPUT MEASURES: THE CASE OF REFRIGERATORS*
Authors: Triplett Jack E. , McDonald Richard J.
Published: March 2005

This paper computes new indexes of output for refrigerators, using hedonic methods to adjust for quality change. The hedonic technique is applied in a new way (it is used to make quality adjustments to prices before they are used in the index), and the results are compared with those from methods used in previous hedonic investigations.

There are three major findings. (1) Overall (1960–1972), our hedonic deflated output series rise more rapidly than conventional measures, because the price indexes used for deflation rise more slowly. (2) The output measures fluctuate more than do output measures produced by conventional methods, because adding hedonic quality adjustments to WPI indexes moves them up in some years and down in others, and the resulting adjustments to the output series were positively correlated with changes in output. (3) Applying methods used in previous studies produces larger adjustments to the published indexes, suggesting that some of the differences noted in previous studies between hedonic indexes and official published indexes are related to computational methods, not to quality adjustment.
THE MEASUREMENT OF CHANGES IN QUALITY
Authors: Lancaster Kelvin
Published: March 2005

This paper is concerned with the theoretical problems of devising indexes of quality change and with some of the practical problems of constructing such indexes from market data, relating these to the various attempts to construct such indexes in the past. The general conclusion is that, while quality is inherently ordinal, there are three different indexes which might be taken as “measures” of quality change. If changes are sufficiently small, the values of all three indexes will coincide and then, only, can we consider any one of them to be an unambiguous measure of the change.
PROBLEMS IN WELFARE MEASUREMENT
Authors: Arkhipoff Oleg
Published: March 2005

In its first part, this note is a summary of the French version of the discussion paper submitted to the present IARIW Conference.1 The second part is devoted to theoretical aspects of aggregation, as regards preference aggregation, and gives necessary and sufficient conditions which are useful for our purposes.
THE STRUCTURE OF HOUSEHOLD SPENDING IN SOUTH AMERICAN CITIES: INDEXES OF DISSIMILARITY AND CAUSES OF INTER‐CITY DIFFERENCES
Authors: Musgrove Philip
Published: March 2005

Household budget data collected in 1966–1971 in eleven cities in six South American countries are used to define individual mean budget structures (means of budget shares across households). These structures are then compared by indexes of dissimilarity, calculated for the entire budget and also for major components: food, animal protein foods, nonfood, and housing and clothing. Differences among cities in real income account for much of the difference in the share of the consumer budget devoted to food, which in turn is a principal source of overall budget dissimilarity. Within the food and nonfood budgets separately, income is of somewhat less importance; prices and preferences become more significant. Budget structures tend for this reason to be similar for cities in the same country. The structure of nonfood spending also varies markedly between coastal and interior cities, largely because of differences in housing costs. The available price data account for dissimilarities which depend on the price of a single large category of spending, but they do not help explain structural differences involving many categories: prices seem more important for nonfood than for food expenditures. Regression analysis is used to weigh the importance of each variable contributing to dissimilarity.
ON THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF PUBLIC CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURES
Authors: Dahlberg Lars , Jakobsson Ulf
Published: March 2005

The multiplier effects resulting from an isolated increase in the level of public consumption within different public branches are investigated and the policy implications are discussed. The article begins with a theorethical analysis which shows why and in which ways these multipliers can be expected to differ between public branches. Thereafter, an empirical investigation is given, based on simulations with an econometric model of the Swedish economy. In this model the public activities are divided into 13 different public branches. The effects of an increase in public consumption on employment, imports and private consumption are found to differ considerably depending on which branch of the public sector is expanded. Some implications for short run stabilization policy are discussed. The article ends with a special analysis of the implications for a medium term planning problem: the trade off between private and public consumption growth. This analysis throws new light on the old topic “private or public consumption”. In an economy with highly differentiated production in the public sector the trade‐off is shown not to be unique. The sacrifice of private consumption growth corresponding to a given growth of public consumption expenditures will vary considerably according to the distribution of the public consumption growth within the different branches of the public sector.
A MEASURE OF STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN OUTPUT
Authors: Moore John H.
Published: March 2005

This article proposes a method of characterizing the growth process using two parameters, a production index measuring growth, and a structural change index measuring the changes in the composition of output. It discusses the properties of the structural change index that is developed, including its relation to the bias in growth rates measured by conventional index numbers. It then applies the measure to an examination of Yugoslav industry for the period 1952–71.
FINDING THE POOR
Authors: Ferber Robert , Musgrove Philip
Published: March 2005

As a basis for judging how public policy affects the poor, this article explores how “poor” families may be defined and how well such families can be distinguished from other families in the less developed countries. This is done by seeking proxies for poverty which are relatively easy to measure, accurate in discriminating between the poor and the non‐poor, and relevant to public policy. To this end, a highly parsimonious model is developed, based on truncation and regression procedures, using only family size and number of wage earners in addition to either income or an education‐age combination. Application of this model to data from household surveys in three major cities of Latin America shows that the model is highly effective in pinpointing poverty households, although the pattern of errors is not random, the most frequent type of error being to classify poverty households as non‐poor.

Especially significant is that the model is nearly as effective for discriminating poverty households from others when financial variables are excluded as when they are included. This would suggest that a good deal of flexibility exists in deciding what variables to include in future studies of this type. The results also suggest that even better results should be possible if more complete information is obtained on the employment status of the different members of the household and on the contribution of each to household income. Ideally, the data collection and model development should proceed in an iterative manner since there are numerous possible variables as well as alternative model formulations.
INFLATION, REDISTRIBUTION OF FACTORS AND UNEMPLOYMENT: ILLUSTRATED BY THE CASE OF FRANCE
Authors: Marczewski Jean
Published: March 2005

This paper examines the causes and consequences of the inflationary process in terms of its impact upon the national accounting flows, illustrated by the case of France during the period 1966–76. The first section of the paper discusses the apparent causes of inflation, and lays out the circuits through which inflation is propagated. The second section looks behind the apparent causes to examine more closely the reasons for the observed behavior. The final section considers the consequences of inflation in terms of factor allocation, and in turn its impact upon unemployment, the balance of payments, and the rate of growth.
INCOME AND CONSUMPTION DISTRIBUTION TRENDS IN THE PHILIPPINES, 1950–70*
Authors: BERRY ALBERT
Published: March 2005

Unlike most developing countries, the Philippines has had several (four) reasonably comparable family income and expenditure surveys, covering a reasonable period of time (15 years). This study draws on those surveys and on wage data in an attempt to judge how, if at all, the distribution of income has been changing. The household survey data shows a declining share of both income and consumption for the top income groups; for the bottom quintile the share of recorded income fell while that of recorded consumption rose. When possible biases of the data are allowed for, it is hard to argue that either a narrowing or widening of income differentials occurred over these years. Real wages of a number of important occupations appear to have fallen, however. Only a partial reconciliation of the trends indicated by these wage series and the income trends for various occupational groups implicit in the household survey data was possible, indicating either data problems or the need for more subtle interpretations of the data. Since structural change in the labour force has been rapid (an increasing share being found in the high income occupations as time passed), declining wage rates for certain lower income groups cannot be taken to imply a general worsening of distribution. Our final conclusion is that distribution has probably changed little, and is about as likely to have changed one way as the other.
NATIONAL INCOME, WELFARE, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Authors: Marin A.
Published: March 2005

This article explores the assumptions underlying present definitions of national income in its principal uses, and considers the alterations that would be needed to allow for the inclusion of environmental quality. A numerical example illustrates the impact of alternative measures. The discussion concludes that if we want national income to conform more closely to theoretical concepts of welfare indices, then we need to include a proxy for those environmental services that would not be completely free goods if it were possible to overcome their inherent non‐marketability. The least unsatisfactory proxy would be the spending on environmental protection.
DO‐IT‐YOURSELF AND GDP*
Authors: Hill T. P.
Published: March 2005

Do‐it‐yourself activities are, by definition, those for which a choice must exist between doing it oneself or hiring someone else. This means they typically involve the own account production of services, but whereas it is customary to include most goods produced on own account in GDP services are conventionally excluded. In principle, however, it is possible to envisage a comprehensive and unique measure of the total final output of all the goods and services produced within an economy whether for sale or own use. Such a measure would be better than GDP as an indicator of long term changes in economic welfare, being independent of any shifts in the ratio of market to non‐market production. Moreover, it would be a homogeneous measure with clearly defined limits in contrast to improvised indices of welfare which mix economic and non‐economic variables in arbitrary and subjective ways. However, the need for a measure of market output, or something very close to it such as GDP, is still as strong as ever as soon as attention is switched from measurement of long term growth to problems associated with market disequilibria, such as unemployment and inflation.
THE REDISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC FUNDS IN FRANCE IN 1965 AND 1970*
Authors: Foulon A. , Hatchuel G.
Published: March 2005

The analysis of the redistribution processes via taxation, transfers and collective services raises several methodological problems among which tax incidence is not the least important. Through two hypotheses of incidence of employers’ social contribution the results of the redistribution of public funds lead to four types of conclusions. Despite the fact that about one third of the French national income is involved in the processes there is no clearcut evidence of any redistribution, except for the nonactive population in so far pensions are considered as redistributed. The positive effects which certain mechanisms may have (e.g. income tax…) are to a certain extent offset, or neutralized, by the anti‐redistributive effects of indirect taxation and social contributions. It appears that the results of the redistribution not only depend on the institution network, on the evolution of demographic structures and the rate of growth for the various types of income but also on lack of adaptation between the evolution of the three groups of factors. In last analysis, the reason why redistribution does not appear to have more far‐reaching consequences is that social policy amalgamates mechanisms often set up in isolation, whereas any reduction in inequalities must be based on a conscious awareness of the inter‐dependence of the situations which create and foster these same inequalities.
CHANGES IN INCOME INEQUALITY: AUSTRALIA, 1968–69 TO 1973–74
Authors: Murray David
Published: March 2005

The period 1968–69 to 1973–74 saw a redistribution of incomes in Australia. This is evidenced first by declining differentials between dissimilar persons and secondly by changes in two measures of income inequality, the Gini and Theil coefficients.

The inequality coefficients are decomposed into components which distinguish between that part of total inequality due to income differences between dissimilar persons and that part due to inequality between similar persons. It is found that the reduction in inequality was due to the reduction in differentials between dissimilar persons and that inequality between similar persons probably did not change over the period.
SOCIAL PROTECTION ACCOUNTS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
Authors: Broderick J. B.
Published: March 2005

The development of social protection accounts is described and the relationship between social security and welfare expenditure (as recorded in social protection accounts) and expenditures in the national accounts is discussed. Proposals are put forward for achieving co‐ordination between social protection expenditure and expenditure recorded in the national accounts, and these are illustrated by reference to Irish data. The future development of social protection accounts by the inclusion of fiscal benefits, which are not recorded in the national accounts, is also considered. Finally some references are made to the use of the social protection accounts and the development of data relating o the numbers of persons covered by social protection and the numbers of beneficiaries.
MEASURING INTERNATIONAL AND INTER‐SECTORAL TERMS OF TRADE: SOME METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
Authors: Derksen J. B. D.
Published: March 2005

The view is expressed that the well‐known formulae for measuring changes in terms of trade cannot be used to conclude whether a country is better off or not. Other variables which reflect the impact upon production, employment, and the competitive position should also be taken into account.

Similarly, changes in terms of trade between the industrial sectors of an economy cannot be used to conclude whether one sector is better off than others. Other factors which play a role include increases in productivity per man‐hour. These may help to explain why in some sectors prices increase less than in others. An attempt is made to illustrate this point using some statistics for the Netherlands.
INCOME INEQUALITY AND POVERTY: SOME PROBLEMS
Authors: Thon Dominique
Published: March 2005

In an important recent book dealing with the measurement of income inequality with particular reference to poverty,1 Prof. N. Kakwani derives several poverty indices, investigates the effect of negative income tax schemes with the help of those indices and gives a numerical illustration based on Malaysian data.

The aim of this note is to point out some logical flaws in his argument. Some of the ideas expressed in the part of his book we are concerned with have been disseminated for some time now2 and referred to in subsequent literature;3 yet their shortcomings do not seem to have attracted anyone's attention. The introductory section gives a concise presentation of the relevant part of Kakwani's contribution. The next two sections deal with some problems with his approach.
NATIONAL AND SECTOR BALANCE SHEETS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
Authors: Hibbert Jack
Published: March 2005

Although national and sector balance sheets have long been regarded as part of the national accounting framework, for a variety of reasons their compilation by official statisticians has been the exception rather than the rule. A programme of balance sheet work in the United Kingdom Central Statistical Office has recently been completed and the results published. The theoretical and practical problems arising in the course of this work are described and discussed. Summary results are given together with an interpretation of the main changes in the sectoral composition of national wealth between 1957 and 1975.
SOCIAL EXPENDITURE: SOCIALIZATION OF EXPENDITURE? THE FRENCH EXPERIMENT WITH SATELLITE ACCOUNTS
Authors: Pommier Philippe
Published: March 2005

This paper discusses the history of the French development of satellite accounts during the late 1960s and 1970s, noting the circumstances that led to the initiation of work in this area and describing the types of problem encountered. It then goes on to draw, on the basis of the French experiment, more general conclusions and to present a proposed accounting framework. The final section considers the concept of social expenditure, but concludes that, at least for the present, it is not possible to construct a useful global concept.
PUBLIC SECTOR STATISTICS FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM
Authors: Wells J. D.
Published: March 2005

This paper describes the composition of the public sector in the United Kingdom and traces the development and contribution to the economy of the three main sub‐sectors‐central government, local government and public corporations—over the past thirty years. Relevant data for output, employment, fixed capital formation and national wealth set the public sector into perspective with the economy as a whole and illustrate how its share of human and other resources has changed over the years. While all four measures show the public sector share of the total to have been around 30 percent in 1980, historically the changes have moved very differently. The slow, but fairly steady, increase in the share of employment and output contrasts with very marked changes in the other two measures. Although public sector fixed investment nearly doubled in real terms between 1950 and 1980 its share of total investment declined from 48 to 31 percent, a much smaller share being taken by dwellings, electricity supply and the railways. In terms of the share of national wealth the public sector moved from a state of indebtedness to the rest of the economy in the fifties and sixties to a position of holding nearly one third of the value of tangible and financial assets in the late seventies.

A small part of the paper considers the international dimension, but because few other countries use the concept of a public sector, this section examines only the relationship between total tax revenue and GDP in a number of countries and employment in general government.

The problems of determining the boundary of the public and private sectors occurs most frequently at the interface between public corporations and private enterprises; the rules for deciding classification are set out in so far as they can be specified.

The last sections of the paper put the statistics into their policy context and consider the value of public sector aggregates. The conclusion is that a general case cannot be made to justify assembling public sector aggregates for all countries; the need will be determined by the economic policies being pursued in a particular country. Although the United Kingdom gives considerable prominence to a public sector financial aggregate, the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement, the functions of the public corporations and the rest of the public sector are so disparate that consolidated accounts for the public sector are no longer prepared.
POVERTY IN EUROPE1
Authors: van Praag Bernard M.S. , Hagenaars Aldi J.M. , van Weern Hans
Published: March 2005

In this paper a definition of poverty in terms of welfare is given. A method is developed to derive poverty lines from an individual welfare function of income. The model is extended to analyse the effect of several socio‐economic characteristics on the level of the poverty line. An empirical application of the method is given based on data from a survey in eight European countries in 1979. Differences in the poverty lines both between countries and between socio‐economic groups within each country are considered. Finally the number of people below these poverty lines is estimated for all countries in the group.
MEASUREMENT OF THE ROLE O F THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN THE FINNISH ECONOMY
Authors: Hjerppe Reino T.
Published: March 2005

Following the growth of the public sector traditional measures of the size of the public sector have appeared to be inadequate for policy purposes. In the article the role of the public sector in the Finnish economy is described first by using some traditional methods and indicators. The historical background of the development is briefly discussed. After that some specific problems of the measurement are discussed. These problems include measurement of output and productivity, definition of appropriate balance of the public sector, different measures to describe the size and scope of the public sector, role of tax reliefs and subsidies, different organizational arrangements, public sector regulation etc.

The growth of the public sector takes many different forms and it appears to be more difficult than formerly to obtain a comprehensive picture of the scope of the public sector. For different purposes different indicators have to be used. At the end of the paper the implications of the changing emphasis in the public policy are discussed.
POSSIBLE SOCIAL POLICY DEVELOPMENTS AND CORRESPONDING STATISTICAL REQUIREMENTS
Authors: Bertrand René
Published: March 2005

Production maximization, together with an appropriate distribution of income and wealth, can no longer be considered as the exclusive objective of socio‐economic policies. Economic and social life is accompanied by numerous hardships, constraints and damages which demand to be minimized. Combining these dual aims is not easy as no single model has yet been set up taking into account all these inter‐relations. However, one may try to reduce the uncertainty about the statistical material that could be required for decision‐making in this new context.
THE HIDDEN ECONOMY: STATE AND PROSPECTS FOR MEASUREMENT1
Authors: Frey Bruno S. , Pommerehne Werner W.
Published: March 2005

To know the size and development of the hidden or underground economy is important for policy making, mainly because the measures undertaken may be misdirected if they are based on biased official statistics. The hidden economy can be measured by considering indicators. The direct methods are based on voluntary surveys and on tax auditing and other compliance methods. The indirect estimation methods rely on the identification of residuals with respect to income and expenditures, as well as in the labor and money markets. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these measurement approaches are discussed and the resulting estimates of the size of the hidden economy are compared. A different approach to measurement is to look at the determinants leading to the existence and growth of the hidden economy. Finally, the method of “unobserved variables” allows the combination of the two approaches by simultaneously considering the determinants and indicators of the under‐ ground economy. The results show a considerable range of sizes for a given country and year. Though there is a broad range of size estimates, there is general agreement that the hidden economy's size has been growing for all countries over recent decades. Further progress in quantitative knowledge about the hidden economy requires the development of a theoretical model which analyses the interdependencies between the official private sector, the hidden economy, and the public sector.
SPACE AND TIME COMPARISONS OF PURCHASING POWER PARITIES AND REAL VALUES
Authors: Krijnse Locker H. , Faerber H. D.
Published: March 2005

The calculation of purchasing power parities and quantity comparisons for a given year provides interesting information about the relative importance of countries. However, it is necessary to make these estimates annually in order to enable users to apply these parities for international comparison of annual data expressed in national currency. The paper deals with the problems related to merging spatial comparisons and temporal volume and price movements for the countries of the European Community. For these countries full information was collected in 1975 and in 1980, whereas in the intermediate years some price data were collected and price indices at a detailed level have also been collected. First the theoretical problems of consistency between the spatial results and temporal indices are discussed. Because no immediate consistency can be obtained, several methods are proposed to achieve consistency, by estimating one unique set of spatial and temporal indices. The available information for the period 1975‐80 has been used in order to test the numerical differences between two sets of parities and price indices over time. Besides theoretical reasons for inconsistency, it is also necessary to take into account errors in the price observations or in the price indices. The results presented in the paper should be considered as provisional and further work will be undertaken to obtain better insights into the inconsistency between these sets of data.
ICP 1980—A BRIEF ACCOUNT FROM AUSTRIA
Authors: Franz A. , Schwarzl R.
Published: March 2005

This paper discusses Austria's experiences in connection with the 1980 round of the UN International Comparison Project, in which comparisons were first made within regions and the regions then linked. Austria played a dual role, as (a) the linking country between Group I (the European Community) and Group II (selected middle and eastern European countries), and (b) the base country for Group II. The paper consists of two principal parts. The first part reports, at the 3‐digit commodity level, on the success achieved in finding comparable items, both within Group II and between Austria and Group I. The second part discusses a number of methodological problems that were encountered in carrying out the comparison. Chief among these was the treatment of social services that are marketed in some countries and provided free of charge or at nominal prices in others. Other questions touched upon include the treatment of output for own consumption, rents, drugs and medicines, and tourist expenditures.
INFLATION, NONOPTIMAL MONETARY ARRANGEMENTS AND THE BANKING IMPUTATION IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS*
Authors: Rymes T. K.
Published: March 2005

This paper demonstrates, with the use of some recent developments in neoclassical monetary theory, that the banking imputation problem in the national accounts arises because of the regulation of banks by Authorities. It demonstrates as well that the banking imputation problem is a manifestation of the failure of the Authorities to provide optimal monetary arrangements. Some comments on existing imputations, in the light of this theory, are provided.
SEGMENTED DEVELOPMENT AND THE WAY PROFITS GO: THE CASE OF INDONESIA*
Authors: Keuning Steven J.
Published: March 2005

In most developing countries profits account for a large proportion of national income, but their origin and use are widely divergent, related to the nature of ownership of the enterprise. Here an institutional classification of productive activities is developed and illustrated by the way profits go in Indonesia. By branch of industry they accrue to four categories of owners (foreign, public, private national incorporated, unincorporated). Next imputed labour income of the self‐employed is separated in order to arrive at the functional distribution of income by sector, and lastly the destination (depreciation, interest, taxes, dividends, retained earnings) of each type of corporate capital income is shown. The estimates indicate a segmentation of activities, with regard to ownership as well as factor shares.
THE INTEGRATION OF MACRO AND MICRO DATA FOR THE HOUSEHOLD SECTOR1
Authors: Ruggles Richard , Ruggles Nancy D.
Published: March 2005

National accounts in their present form do not serve very well as a framework for microdata, largely because of differing concepts and coverage in the macro and micro data. This article identifies the differences in sectoring and the handling of imputations and attributions between macro and micro data, and then proposes a form of presentation of the macro accounts that will facilitate their integration. Data for the United States in 1980 are used as an illustrative example. The final section explores the consequences of the proposed alterations in the macro accounts for the analysis of saving and investment and the accumulation and distribution of wealth, using U.S. data for the period since 1947. The article concludes that the proposed alterations do lead to new analytical insights, and further, that in their present form the national accounts are both misleading and inadequate.
FINANCIAL OPERATIONS AND MONETARY STATISTICS: IMPROVED CONCORDANCE IN THE FRENCH NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
Authors: Milot Jean‐Paul , Teillet Pierre
Published: March 2005

National accounts are a powerful means of coordinating different statistical systems. The better their classifications are adapted to the basic statistics or the information blocks one wishes to use, the better the national accounts play their part. This statement explains why, taking the opportunity of revising the whole system, French national accountants tried to improve the concordance between financial operation tables and monetary statistics. Other reasons leading to this attempt can be found in the dissatisfaction of users having to face different and inconsistent financial information such as the monetary statistics on one hand and the financial aggregates of the national accounts on the other; and even more reasons appear in the organizational field since those two statistical systems are issued by two neighbour services of the Banque de France, often depending on the same sources. Further, many propitious factors are converging at the same time: the French financial system is undergoing profound transformations originating as much in the behaviour of economic agents as in the law, and the statistical operations have to adapt to these changes. The national accounts will in the near future include balance sheets in which financial asset holdings are directly comparable to the money supply aggregates. In its first part our paper sets forth the detailed reasons for our attempts, the conditions in which it took place and the present results. We have reached a much better degree of consistency between the two systems, even if the final scheme has not yet been adopted in either the monetary field or in the field of national accounts. But an important question remains open about the durability of the harmonization: we think that it could be relatively uncertain because of the differences in the goals pursued by the two systems and the constraints which they face. That is why in the second part of the paper we tried to review the way such a pragmatic undertaking as ours could call into question the way in which financial operations are described in the system of national accounts. If one agrees with the present boundary between the real and the financial sphere, the articulation must remain somewhat elementary. But if one wants to revise the usual so‐called dichotomy between financial and non financial phenomena, we think that a complete rebuilding of the conceptual framework of the accounts has to be done; this would necessitate a considerable amount of theoretical and practical work.
FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS AND BALANCE SHEETS: ISSUES FOR THE REVISION OF SNA
Authors: Ruggles Nancy D.
Published: March 2005

This paper is an abridged version of a report with the same title originally written for the United Nations Statistical Office, as a part of the ongoing review of the System of National Accounts. Its purpose is to identify the issues in the financial statistics area that need to be considered in the course of the review. Particular attention is paid to problems of harmonization of SNA with related standards of the International Monetary Fund. The 1968 SNA provided a place in the framework for financial accounts and balance sheets, but did not develop them in any detail. In the 19 years since the revised SNA was published, policy and analytic interest in financial questions has greatly increased, and much work has been done on conceptual development and statistical compilation of financial statistics, both within and outside of the SNA framework. It is now apparent that some of the early decisions taken when financial considerations were not the focus of attention need reconsideration, some of the makeshift solutions that have grown up over time are no longer adequate, and some issues that have not been dealt with at all need to be addressed. This paper is not intended to propose solutions, but rather to reflect questions that have been raised, and to present alternatives that have been proposed.
BEYOND GDP—NEW APPROACHES TO APPLIED STATISTICS
Authors: Bartelmus Peter
Published: March 2005

New social concerns and priorities–beyond the economic growth paradigm–pose a challenge to the established statistical systems. The initial response of developing overall welfare measures and social indicators of the human quality of life had little impact on official statistics. Environment statistics, on the other hand, has become accepted as a new branch of applied statistics, maturing from exclusive pollution monitoring to cover various aspects of natural resources and the man‐made environment. Still, a rather artificial separation between ecological monitoring and modeling and anthropocentric environmental statistics and accounting persists. The assessment of complex and interrelated socioeconomic and environmental concerns requires comparable inter‐disciplinary information. The provision of such information should be facilitated by a flexible framework approach to statistical coordination and integration.
MAJOR CHANGES PROPOSED FOR THE NEXT SNA: AN OVERVIEW
Authors: Harrison Anne
Published: March 2005

The first draft of the new manual for the System of National Accounts will be circulated during 1990. The major changes to be incorporated in it are highlighted in this article. A full list of all changes is available from the United Nations Statistical Office and will be included as an annex to the final manual.
A SYSTEM OF HEALTH STATISTICS TOWARD A NEW CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR INTEGRATING HEALTH DATA
Authors: Wolfson Michael C.
Published: March 2005

In this paper the author outlines a broad new conceptual approach to the organization of health statistics data for Canada. It represents the initial thinking in a longer term project directed towards the review of the basic form and content of Statistics Canada's program of health statistics. Two major concerns have given rise to the project. First is the general lack of coherence in health data, as compared for example to the System of National Accounts. Second is a widely perceived imbalance in data collection efforts that places too much weight on the resources devoted to provision of health care and not enough on the health status of the population–both in terms of distribution and temporal trends. These concerns are reviewed, and then a new conceptual framework within which these concerns could be met is suggested.

“Her account of the voyage was considerably more interesting than the account of expenses incurred; but she was asked to account for spending so much of the voyage visiting minor satellites rather than seeking a broad overview of the entire system.”
NATIONAL ACCOUNTING AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION
Authors: Harrison Anne
Published: March 2005

Conventional national accounts are often seen as concentrating on the production process, on how goods and services are produced, rather than on consumption, or who the products serve. Production finances consumption via income generation, distribution and re‐distribution. This paper demonstrates this inter‐action by elaborating a full economic accounting matrix, and takes both theoretical and practical considerations into account. The aim is to explore how far the revised SNA can and should give emphasis to issues of income distribution and consumption.
CONCEPT AND DEFINITION OF INCOME IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
Authors: Reich Utz‐Peter
Published: March 2005

It is a truism that the national accounts have engendered their own concept of income which is different from other contexts such as business accounting, taxation or welfare analysis. Less known are the principles on which this income concept is based. This article is an attempt to specify such principles, investigating in particular the role of the transaction principle, and to derive an income concept therefrom. The crucial point of the argument is whether or not it is appropriate within the system of the national accounts to assign an income to sectors other than the households. The theory is applied to some practical questions which have been discussed in the process of the revision of the SNA.
THE USE OF TENDENCY SURVEYS IN EXTRAPOLATING NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
Authors: Ouddeken Frank E. M. , Zijlmans Gerrit M.
Published: March 2005

A well‐known way of using tendency survey data is the construction of Composite Leading Indicators (CLIs). It is rather peculiar that CLIs pretend to predict macroeconomic aggregates, while their construction is not consistent with the way actual macroeconomic statistics are compiled. This paper contains preliminary results of an attempt to integrate tendency survey indicators into the framework of the Dutch Quarterly Accounts. We conclude that tendency survey indicators can contribute to an explanation of trends in “real” economic variables. Many of these indicators lead the Quarterly Accounts indicators. They can, therefore, contribute to a timely estimation of National Accounts aggregates.
ACCOUNTING FOR GOLD: THE SOUTH AFRICAN CASE
Authors: Moll Terence
Published: March 2005

Real output measures in the UN System of National Accounts should be continually re‐evaluated, to ensure they are providing indicators appropriate for user needs. The South African gold mining industry is an intriguing case in which the conventional output indicators are highly misleading for various analytical purposes, largely because the usual background assumptions are particularly invalid. Due to the size of the industry, its precise treatment can have sizeable effects on estimates of the growth of GDP, particularly over periods when the price of gold changes. A number of easily produced additional output measures are suggested to help analyse productivity growth and differences between the growth of real output and real incomes.
THE DISSAVING OF ANNUITY WEALTH AND MARKETABLE WEALTH IN RETIREMENT
Authors: Mirer Thad W.
Published: March 2005

This paper compares the automatic dissaving of annuity wealth with the discretionary dissaving of marketable wealth that would result from life‐cycle consumption behavior by retired persons. In simulations of a life‐cycle model based on the isoelastic utility function and realistic parameter values, we find that marketable wealth normally would be dissaved more rapidly than annuity wealth. This suggests that empirical findings that show the opposite relation‐slow dissaving of marketable wealth being accompanied by faster dissaving of annuity wealth (or total wealth)‐should not be interpreted as evidence that supports the life‐cycle theory.
DOES GNP EXAGGERATE GROWTH IN “ACTUAL” OUTPUT? THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES
Authors: Fuess Scott M. , Van Den Berg Hendrik
Published: March 2005

Measures of national product can be misleading because there is nonmarket production. There are also distortions due to transactional activities, which are expenditures to support transactions, not actual output consumed. For 1950–89, this study recalculates output for the United States, adjusting for transactional activities and nonmarket production. Due to relatively rapid growth in transactional activities, GNP overstates output growth in the 1950s; because there was slow expansion of transactional activities in the early 1970s, GNP understates actual output. Since 1974, increases in transactional activities and shifts to market production lead GNP to exaggerate improvement of “actual” output per capita.
PERCEPTIONS, PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF PREPARING LABOUR FORCE ACCOUNTS IN INDIA
Authors: Tiwari S. G.
Published: March 2005

The paper concerns the links between labour force accounts and national accounts. It first discusses the variation in the perception of labour force among countries which results in much disparity in recorded participation rates. This obviously makes international comparison difficult. Since benchmark labour force information is often tied to population censuses which are infrequent and vary in concepts and approaches, even comparisons within a country over time are difficult. Finally a discussion of the use of labour force data to estimate the unrecorded economy is followed by suggestions on the direction for future work.
HOUSEHOLD INCOME PLUS HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTION: THE DISTRIBUTION OF EXTENDED INCOME IN THE U.K.
Authors: Jenkins Stephen P. , O'Leary Nigel C.
Published: March 2005

This paper provides new estimates of the distribution of extended income amongst non‐elderly, one‐family households in the U.K. by combining household money income data and valuations of household production time. Extended income is substantially more equal than money income and extending the income definition changes income relativities significantly between families with and without earners and between married couple families and singles.
HOUSEHOLDS, GOODS, AND WELL‐BEING
Authors: Ringen Stein
Published: March 2005

Household economies translate goods into well‐being through production, co‐operation, and distribution. Between market goods to households and well‐being to persons, value is added. Income is a measure of goods, consumption well‐being is measured by equivalent income. An absolute interpretation of equivalent income is argued as the value to persons of consumption well‐being after household economies. Guidance is suggested on the choice of equivalence scales, and for the measurement of well‐being and inequality.