Review of Income and Wealth · 1986 · 45 citations · 5 references
Social SciencesAccountancyEconomicsFinancial AccountingMacroeconomicsMicroeconomicsHousehold EconomicsHousehold Financial Decision-makingIncome DistributionIncome MeasurementMicroeconometricsNational Income AccountingHistorical National AccountsHousehold Income MeasurementHousehold Wealth AccumulationMacro Systems
National accounts in their current form poorly support microdata analysis due to differing concepts and coverage between macro and micro data. The article seeks to identify sectoring, imputation, and attribution differences between macro and micro data and propose a presentation of macro accounts that facilitates integration. Using 1980 U.S. data as an illustration, the authors examine how the proposed alterations affect saving, investment, and wealth accumulation and distribution using data from 1947 onward.
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.
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VALUING THE SERVICES OF CONSUMER DURABLES
Arnold J. Karz · Review of Income and Wealth · 1983 · 49 citations