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The purpose of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is to improve the quality of the database for modelling, including, but not limited to, policy analysis, multiplier analysis, price analysis, and Computable General Equilibrium. This article contributes to constructing the 2017 national SAM for South Africa, incorporating regional accounts. Only in Limpopo Province of South Africa are agricultural industries, labour, and households captured at the district level, while agricultural industry, labour, and household accounts in other provinces remain unchanged. The main data sources for constructing a SAM are found from different sources, such as Supply and Use Tables, National Accounts, Census of Commercial Agriculture, Quarterly Labour Force Survey, South Africa Revenue Service, Global Insight (regional explorer), and South Africa Reserve Bank. The dataset recorded that land returns for irrigation agriculture were highest (18.2%) in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa compared to other provinces, whereas the Free State Province of South Africa rainfed agriculture had the largest shares (22%) for payment to land. Regarding intermediate inputs, rainfed agriculture in the Western Cape, Free State, and Kwazulu-Natal Provinces paid approximately 0.4% for using intermediate inputs. In terms of the districts, land returns for irrigation were highest in the Vhembe district of Limpopo Province of South Africa with 0.3%. Despite Mopani district of Limpopo Province of South Africa having the lowest land returns for irrigation agriculture, it has the highest share (1.6%) of payment to land from rainfed agriculture. The manufacturing and community service sectors had a trade deficit, whereas other sectors experienced a trade surplus. The main challenges found in developing a SAM are scarcity of data to attain the information needed for disaggregation for the sub-matrices and insufficient information from different data sources for estimating missing information to ensure the row and column totals of the SAM are consistent and complete. Dataset:  https://doi.org/10.38140/ufs.24032457.v1. Dataset License: CC-BY 4.0 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is an extension of Input-Output tables that records macro and meso-economic accounts of a socio-economic system. Its main objective is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the interrelationships among different economic sectors and agents. The SAM can be used for various purposes, including economic analysis, policy evaluation, and economic modelling. It allows policymakers to make more informed decisions, understand potential consequences of different policy options and serve as the foundation for constructing Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models. Data description: The SAM for Germany is a comprehensive source of data that reveals the incomes and expenditures of 163 different production sectors, along with data on factors of production, households, corporations, government, and external accounts with the rest of the world. Additionally, it provides information on gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories, and natural capital accounts. This SAM was compiled by extending the EXIOBASE Input-Output (IO) accounts with data from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. Balancing items were also used to ensure that the Total Income and Total Expenditure of the main transactors are in balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the changes in the Russian population's propensity to save in 2011-2020 in the context of national (SNA) and transfer (NTA) accounts. The calculation of the Households Savings value on a gross and net basis is methodologically consistent with the National Transfer Accounts Manual, the System of National Accounts 2008, and the official Rosstat statistical methodology for constructing non-financial accounts of the Household sector in the System of National Accounts of the Russian Federation. Structural changes in households' savings were studied from three perspectives: against the background of the economy's savings, changes in the volume of public transfers to the private sector, and conclusions from international studies on NTA. The construction of the balance sheet of the Households sector's savings and accumulation (according to the SNA data) and the system of aggregate transfer accounts yielded the following results. From 2011 to 2020, the population provided between 1/5 and 1/3 of the total gross saving of the Russian economy. The Households sector acted as a net creditor to other institutional sectors of the SNA (including the Rest of the World sector), providing them with resources saved but not used for accumulation amounting to 1.0-6.0% of GDP. This study confirms that there is a direct correlation between changes in the volume of income saved by the population and changes in life cycle and public reallocation accounts estimates. The analysis of the Russian economy shows that the households' saving rate was steadily low, comprising about 6.2% of disposable income on average, amidst significant public benefits. These findings match the results of cross-country comparative studies on developed economies made in the context of NTA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional economic growth models treat production/consumption as abstractions linked only by money flows, disregarding their connection to the physical world. Nevertheless, the existing literature suggests that energy flows can influence production and links useful exergy prices with economic growth. Useful exergy is energy measured at the stage where it produces an end-use (and is a measurement of energy quality). Not all approaches in the literature use this metric and they often consider energy as a primary input (despite it being an intermediate input). We explore the relationship between energy flows and economic growth for the US through a framework where useful exergy, the output of an "extended energy sector" (where all effects of increasing primary-to-final-to-useful exergy efficiency are located), is an intermediate input for a "non-energy sector". Together, they encompass the entire economy. We conclude that the share of investment in the extended energy sector grew with the overall economic growth throughout 1960–2020, while the labour share decreased. The non-energy sector contributed the largest share of consumption, exports, imports and labour. In recent years, the energy sector has overtaken it in terms of investment. Our two-sector model has important implications for current climate policy, namely regarding the Integrated Assessment Models on which it is based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the importance of economic resilience has increased as economic shocks have become more frequent in the world, there is still a knowledge gap on how to measure it. In search for effective ways to measure national resilience, this article identifies and mathematically proves the existence of direct correlation between resilience and competitiveness through timespecific global correlation rate. This research proposes an economic performance evaluation method that measures the competitiveness of countries facing economic shocks and recovering from them. A quantified method for identification of global economic shocks through industrial portfolio is proposed as well. The holistic approach internalises most externalities and a nation's resilience is pared down to its ability to compete in the international trade, linking the main determinants of resilience to the basics of human behaviour. The proposed methodology can be used effectively for national and global economic performance estimations. It also opens a range of new possibilities for economic resilience studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term „Green economy" in the context of sustainable development was used for the first time in 1989, there is no internationally agreed definition for it. In the last decades, in a relatively short period it has become an issue with major importance worldwide, the society realizing that its actions have direct effects on the environment, its live and where we carry out our work. In order to correctly understand the meaning of Green economy we need an insight on man as an individual but also on organizations that make economic and financial decisions and initiatives. This paper examines the EU countries progress toward green economy, identifies the relationship with financial and economic indicators and analyses the role of eco-innovation performance and innovative capacity toward green transition to meet the European Green Deal objectives. Complex theoretical, methodological and empirical research methodology was adopted by using specific methods of investigation: critical analysis of the literature, complex quantitative and qualitative analysis, identification, construction and the appropriate processing of existing databases. The numerical results were obtained by the SPSS software package. The paper's outcome identifies barriers and success factors in the implementation of the EU's main new growth strategy, highlights that the green transformation process of the economy needs large investments in innovation and eco-innovation and needs the green finance to be covered also by the public and private sector on national and EU level and from the EU budget as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sustainability in Debate / Sustentabilidade em Debate is the property of University of Brasilia, Center for Sustainable Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since the outset of economic transformation in the 90th of the 20th century, the sphere of non-profit institutions in the Czech economy has been expanding. This evolution poses a challenge for macroeconomic statistics and its compilers to reflect adequately the operation of non-profit segment as well as to treat non-profit institutions properly in terms of their sector classification. The paper thus aims to discuss not only the treatment of non-profit institutions in national accounts but also the way non-profit institutions are identified in the regulatory environment of the Czech economy and classified following the rules laid down in the national accounts methodology. The paper also highlights major obstacles the compilers are facing when dealing with this specific economic sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National accounting matrices (NAM) perfectly describe the economic structure of a national economy, summarising the whole process of generation of primary income and its distribution among the different institutional sectors of the economy. It is not just a way to represent the main economic statistics of an economy but it also serves as the basis for most macroeconomic modelling efforts. The business accounting matrix (BAM) presents the most relevant information for the firm in a similar way, adapted to the descriptive potential of financial accounting, what we believe can be useful both for economic modellers and for decision makers at the firm level. Our intention is not to convince business administrators to change their accounting paradigm but to help analysts and researchers to obtain a comprehensive description of the activity of a firm aligned to well recognised economic statistical standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compile measures of 'per capita Real Adjusted Net National Income' (pcRANNI), being the income available for consumption by a country's residents while maintaining the (broadly defined) capital stock intact, i.e. 'sustainable consumption'. Changes in pcRANNI incorporate the impacts both of changes in technical efficiency (i.e. multi-factor productivity) and allocative efficiency where the latter reflects reallocation of resources in response to price signals. We find that New Zealand had approximately zero pcRANNI growth from 1970 to the early 1990s. Since then, New Zealand's performance has been stronger than for most developed countries. We find considerable deviations between pcRANNI growth and per capita real GDP growth for some countries, highlighting the importance, especially for cross-country comparisons of aggregate economic performance, of focusing on income-based sustainable consumption measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequality evidence based on surveys, tax records, or their combination often result in divergent trends, fueling the distributional debate in Latin America. Beyond the strengths and weaknesses of these sources and their combination, tax-survey data face two shortcomings: they are unable to account for aggregate household or national income, and they are affected by firm owners' decisions about the distribution of profits, changing which incomes researchers can actually observe. We combine social security data, household surveys and matched personal and firm tax records, which allows us to accurately account for all income sources, particularly capital incomes at the firm and individual level. Based on these unique data, we assess inequality trends in Uruguay, showing that increasing profit-distribution by firms pushes tax-survey top shares upwards, but that this trend is offset when undistributed profits are accounted for. These results call for caution when using tax-survey data without considering changes in profit-distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the rise of environmental accounting in global governance via a case study of the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting. We draw on recent literature that highlights the boundary between 'economy' and 'non-economy' as an important site of politics, and which establishes the key role of accounting practices in constructing that boundary. We show how the conceptual framework underpinning emergent global environmental accounting standards attempts to distinguish economy from non-economy in a way consistent with mainstream macroeconomic thought. However, and in contrast to existing critical accounts, we demonstrate that attempts to draw a clear boundary between the 'economic' and 'non-economic' aspects of the environment sometimes end up de-stabilizing that very distinction, establishing heterogenous notions of economic value that are increasingly inconsistent with standard national accounting practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that we can use social media data to improve the accuracy of GDP estimates at the country level for developing countries. I use all publicly available image tweets from 2012 and 2013 to estimate GDP at the country level for developing countries. First, I find that one can explain 76% of the cross-country variation in GDP with the volume of tweets sent from each country. I then show that the residuals on these Twitter-GDP estimates are significantly larger for countries with allegedly poor data quality. I then use Nigeria as a case study to show that this method delivers much more timely and accurate estimates than those presented by official statistic agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of WISTA Wirtschaft und Statistik is the property of Statistisches Bundesamt and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Desarrollo Económico is the property of Instituto de Desarrollo Economico y Social and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

American finance has grown immensely profitable in the past four decades, but the precise reasons for this tremendous and sustained growth have not been sufficiently understood. The primary purpose of this paper is to explain the immense profitability of US finance by systematically examining how its sources of profit and types of profit-generating activities have changed since the onset of financialisation in the 1980s. Conceptually, the paper develops a typology of financial profit-generating activities, drawing a separation between credit intermediation, market mediation, and rentierism. Empirically, it examines the changing accumulation dynamics witnessed in US finance since the 1960s using the IRS Statistics of Income, BEA National Income and Product Accounts, and Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data. The paper identifies primary income sources for the sector as a whole and its most profitable subsectors, finding strong evidence that financial profit-making has shifted from lending to ownership and management of capital. It is argued that this transformation has fundamentally changed finance's relationship with the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the share of total income held by the richest 1%, or other top income groups, is increasingly used to discuss inequality levels and trends within and between nations. A top income share is the ratio of the total income held by the top income group divided by total personal income (the 'income control total'). We compare two approaches to estimating income control totals: the 'external' approach used by the World Inequality Database, and an augmented 'internal' approach. We argue in favour of the latter, with reference to five desirable properties that a top share series would ideally possess. The choice matters: our augmented 'internal' approach yields estimates of the UK top 1% share that are around 2% points higher than the 'external' approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, income and expenditure-side estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) (GDP I and GDP E ) measure "true" GDP with error and are available at a quarterly frequency. Methods exist for using these proxies to produce reconciled quarterly estimates of true GDP. In this paper, we extend these methods to provide reconciled historical true GDP estimates at a monthly frequency. We do this using a Bayesian mixed frequency vector autoregression (MF-VAR) involving GDP E , GDP I , unobserved true GDP, and monthly indicators of short-term economic activity. Our MF-VAR imposes restrictions that reflect a measurement-error perspective (i.e., the two GDP proxies are assumed to equal true GDP plus measurement error). Without further restrictions, our model is unidentified. We consider a range of restrictions that allow for point and set identification of true GDP and show that they lead to informative monthly GDP estimates. We illustrate how these new monthly data contribute to our historical understanding of business cycles and we provide a real-time application nowcasting monthly GDP over the pandemic recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective monitoring of national circular economy policies requires consistent, national databases of material flows and environmental impacts. Yet, databases and indicators developed so far are scattered and inconsistent. To tackle this problem, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) developed a material flow monitor (MFM) that integrates existing statistics using principles of the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA). The MFM is the physical counterpart of the Dutch supply and use tables (SUT) of the National Accounts and is also referred to as physical SUT (P‐SUT). The P‐SUT captures national resource extraction, product imports and exports, product flows between economic sectors, as well as emissions and waste streams resulting from economic activities. Our work illustrates how a statistical office can use and enrich its formal statistical data to compose an MFM consistent with the National Accounts and how indicators can be extracted with a case study on the bio‐based economy. We contribute a clear step‐by‐step description of the method and the used datasets. This supports the development of MFMs by other statistical offices and researchers, thereby enabling consistent and comparable circular economy monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the literature, which indicates the high importance of financial surplus in investment expenditures, which are essential in creating a competitive advantage, and having in mind that with GDP growth a decreasing trend can be observed in the sphere of investment expenditures in Poland, an analysis was made of the sources of financing investment expenditures of enterprises and the financial result of entities with domestic and foreign capital operating in Poland. This made it possible to identify the situation of the Polish economy over the years in terms of the structure of investments and to try to answer the question of whether the financial results achieved by entities with domestic capital are sufficient to make the investments necessary to maintain a high position in the competitive environment. As a result of the analysis, it was found that entities with domestic capital, representing a majority of around 80 % of the total balance sheet contributors in Poland, generate only 60% of the gross financial result, while less than 20 % of foreign companies have a financial result exceeding 40%. The methods used include an analysis of the literature, data contained in statistical databases (CSO and Eurostat). The data presented cover the period 2005-2020, mostly in the form of annual aggregates for Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of WISTA Wirtschaft und Statistik is the property of Statistisches Bundesamt and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The archives of François Perroux deposited at IMEC bear witness to the fact that he has devoted, beyond his scientific production, great energy to the most material aspects of research: setting up and maintaining networks to publicize his work and that of other economists, either directly or through the institutes and the journals he headed; organize seminars and symposiums; take care of relations with colleagues and the press; create collections and journals; and so on. In this chapter, we concentrate our attention on the archives relating to the management of the institutes, those attesting to the lines and themes of the producer's research, and those concerning his important correspondence. Thanks to the archives deposited at IMEC, it is possible to follow the development of the theoretical work of François Perroux by contextualizing it. They also show the itinerary of a Christian intellectual, whose attachment to social Catholicism constitutes a guiding thread and is reflected in all his activities. Finally, the archives illuminate his substantial role in the institutionalization of research in economics in the France of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, governments in European countries adopted a wide range of containment measures to prevent the spread of the virus. These measures led to unprecedented short-term economic loss for national economies, to which governments responded with support measures targeting both households and businesses. In this article, we argue that official statistics are a key source for robust comparisons of the economic impact of COVID-19 and subsequent support measures across countries. In particular, we use Eurostat's quarterly non-financial sector accounts and supplementary information provided by countries to estimate and compare the support received by households in 18 European countries. We focus our analysis on the second and third quarter of 2020, when national economies in Europe were impacted mostly by the containment measures. The results show some heterogeneity in the type and extent of support provided. Interestingly, while in some countries support interventions were far from making up for the loss of income, in others they far outweighed it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of WISTA Wirtschaft und Statistik is the property of Statistisches Bundesamt and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Considering the literature which demonstrates the high importance of investment in creating a competitive advantage for the economy and economic growth, an analysis was made of the structure of some elements of gross fixed capital formation in the Polish economy and few selected European countries. This made it possible to identify the situation of the Polish economy over the years in terms of the structure of investment, and to attempt in answering to the question of whether the rate of accumulation of fixed capital in Poland is sufficient to close, or reduce the distance of development in relation to highly developed countries. In Poland, the leader among the sectors which absorb the largest percentage of investments remains expenditures with construction assets, and the smallest expenditure with intellectual property products. Poland is one of the countries with high GDP growth over the years. However, along with GDP growth, a decreasing trend can be seen in the sphere of investment expenditures, which does not allow for the reduction of the development gap. The methods used include an analysis of the literature, data contained in statistical databases (GUS and Eurostat) and specialized reports (PARP). The period of analysis covers the years 2004-2020 due to the fact that Poland's accession to the European Union took place in 2004, which allows for accurate international comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Distribution of Personal Income constructed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for U.S. households (2007–2018), I use a National Accounts framework to show that transfers significantly lower inequality between households by redistributing income from non‐elderly households to elderly households. Social security and Medicare are the most significant transfers, responsible for two third of the overall inequality reduction, substantially more than income‐based transfers for most households. Transfers do not significantly reduce inequality between racial groups overall. As the population ages, transfers have increased as a share of income for all races; yet, inequality persists at a high level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a unique example of enduring statistical cooperation and collaboration across national, regional, and global agencies. For over fifty years, the Program has delivered a vital public good: purchasing power parities (PPPs) and price level indexes (PLIs) for economies across the globe. PPPs enable a wealth of metrics on economic output, material well-being, and consumption, as well as a host of PPP-based indicators across the socioeconomic spectrum, many of which are used for monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Fundamental to these data and metrics is cross-country comparability, and the ICP's multi-agency partnership ensures that this is achieved through agreement on common statistical standards and methods in price data collection, in national accounts expenditure data compilation, in quality assurance, and in the calculation and dissemination of results. Working within a comprehensive governance structure overseen by the United Nations Statistical Commission, the ICP Global Office at the World Bank, and five regional agencies, together with Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), collaborate with over 170 national agencies to ensure that the work carried out across all economies adheres to these established benchmarks and processes, resulting in both bespoke ICP price collections that reflect both nationally relevant and globally comparable goods and services, and expenditure data that follow international standards. This paper presents an overview of this unique global partnership and highlights how different challenges and processes are addressed by stakeholders working with shared knowledge towards a common goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial intermediation services indirectly measured, or simply FISIM, is an adjustment made in national accounts which constitutes significant element in output of the financial institutions. Therefore, the methodological aspects of this adjustment are still broadly discussed issue. In case of the Czech Republic, the institution responsible for the estimation is the Czech Statistical Office. The paper deeply analyses the approach of this institution and compare it with opinions of many authors. Based on this literature research, the aim of this paper is to propose improvements in the current estimation and find out other options how to estimate the most accurate value of FISIM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government size in developed economies expanded remarkably after the Second World War. This growth shaped the role of the government as a key player in the economic activity and the aggregate dynamics of a country. However, the way in which the government is represented in DSGE models is often reductive, containing homogeneous public spending and a few distortionary taxes without clear counterparts in fiscal data. This paper shows how dynamic general equilibrium models can incorporate a detailed government sector as defined in the System of National Accounts (SNA). This government features six types of public expenditures (i.e. the government's intermediate consumption, public wage bill, debt service, public investment, and transfers to households both in-kind and other-than-in-kind), and five distortionary taxes (i.e. consumption tax, capital and labor income taxes, corporate tax and social contributions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health crisis has highlighted the need for national accounts able to trace the activity and financial situations of various groups of economic agents as quickly as possible. It also raises several questions about how real GDP aggregates quantities of heterogeneous goods and services that meet very different needs, the relative priorities of which have been, at least temporarily, affected by the crisis. We focus on two aspects of this question: the theoretical properties of chaining volumes at market prices for the market component of GDP and the related problems of measurement and aggregation for its non-market components. Beyond the short-term shock, the crisis provides an opportunity to revisit some substantive issues regarding the interpretation of production and volume growth indicators, issues that the post-crisis period should continue to fuel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains how the compilation of distributional results in line with national accounts' totals may assist in overcoming some of the challenges faced by micro data statistics in measuring inequality, including capturing the top tail. As national accounts rely on a harmonised system of concepts and definitions in which multiple data sources are brought together in order to arrive at comprehensive, coherent and consistent results, they may capture elements that may be missing from underlying statistics and may provide more reliable estimates for items that may be more prone to quality issues in underlying statistics. This implies that aligning micro data to national accounts totals may improve the overall quality of distributional results, mainly depending on the way in which any gaps between the micro and macro data are allocated to underlying households. This article provides an overview of possible underlying reasons for the micro-macro gaps, including the issue of the missing rich, and provides guidance on how to deal with them in order to arrive at the best possible distributional results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low response rates among rich households are thought to be a serious problem in many applications using household surveys. The paper discusses the various ways the problem can be dealt with, and makes some recommendations for practice, including in developing countries. Under certain conditions, income-selective non-compliance with an initially randomized assignment can be corrected by reweighting the data. This requires that the surveys pick up at least some top incomes. If not, then income tax records can help, including in estimating distributional national accounts. However, tax data come with their own concerns including tax avoidance/evasion, weak coverage of informal sectors and illicit incomes, and concerns about construct validity, given the limitations of taxable income as a basis for inter-personal comparisons of economic welfare. An appropriately weighted survey-based distribution of an acceptable measure of economic welfare need not be less reliable for most purposes of distributional analysis than income-tax records, including in combination with surveys. The choice will depend on the question to be addressed, and country-specific circumstances. These measurement issues warrant further research across multiple settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimates the distribution of personal wealth in South Africa by combining microdata covering the universe of income tax returns, household surveys, and macroeconomic balance sheet statistics. South Africa is characterized by unparalleled levels of wealth concentration. The top 10 percent own 86 percent of aggregate wealth and the top 0.1 percent close to one-third. The top 0.01 percent of the distribution (3,500 individuals) concentrate 15 percent of household net worth, more than the bottom 90 percent as a whole. Such levels of inequality can be accounted for in all forms of assets at the top end, including housing, pension funds, and financial assets. There has been no sign of decreasing inequality since the end of apartheid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), one of the world's most influential economic indicators, did not become truly global until it was implemented by China. China officially adopted GDP as an indicator of economic performance in 1993 when the country abandoned its Marxist-inspired national accounting system and joined the internationally harmonized System of National Accounts. As such, it was the last major country to begin producing GDP figures according to international standards. Since then, GDP has become deeply ingrained in China's economic governance. Yet, the adoption of GDP was complicated by mismatches between the ideology guiding China's reform process and the economic ideas underpinning international statistical standards. The Chinese government's translation of the standards into the domestic political-economic context lasted nearly a decade. This process was not foisted upon China from the outside, but rather was driven by domestic factors in an experimental fashion. This is best characterized as an atypical case of diffusion and an unsuccessful case of translation. It makes clear that macroeconomic measurement is inherently political, not a set of neutral 'best practices'. The findings also point to the characteristics of the diffusion object as an underexplored but important factor that can undermine domestic attempts to translate or localize global policy ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of WISTA Wirtschaft und Statistik is the property of Statistisches Bundesamt and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Economia Contemporânea is the property of Revista de Economia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent years have seen many attempts to combine expenditure-side estimates of U.S. real output (GDE) growth with income-side estimates (GDI) to improve estimates of real GDP growth. We show how to incorporate information from multiple releases of noisy data to provide more precise estimates while avoiding some of the identifying assumptions required in earlier work. This relies on a new insight: using multiple data releases allows us to distinguish news and noise measurement errors in situations where a single vintage does not. We find that (a) the data prefer averaging across multiple releases instead of discarding early releases in favor of later ones, and (b) that initial estimates of GDI are quite informative. Our new measure, GDP++, undergoes smaller revisions and tracks expenditure measures of GDP growth more closely than either the simple average of the expenditure and income measures published by the BEA or the GDP growth measure of Aruoba et al. published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study aims to suggest a mechanism for achieving economic sustainability in Egypt while also considering the environmental consequences. Egypt is an Arab and Islamic country. The study’s goal is to revise the traditional system of national accounts, which measures a country’s economic performance and identifes all economic changes without accounting for environmental and social costs; as a result, the study introduces a national income account adjustment that assesses the depreciation values of depleted resources on the one hand, and the monetary values of environmental retreat on the other. The study employed descriptive and analytical approaches to evaluate both modern ideas of sustainable development and the Egyptian sustainable development plan. The study indicates that data on natural resources must be acquired in an effective and timely manner to execute the proposed strategy. Finally, the study concludes that adjusting national income accounts and calculating sustainable income on a global scale, particularly for developing countries, will have a signifcant impact on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and that it may lead to a review of national comparison criteria based on sustainable income rather than current income [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main causes of the economic and sovereign debt crisis in 2010 – 2012 in some European countries like the United Kingdom, Spain and Ireland was the bursting of the residential market price bubble that was formed in the previous period. In this paper, a specific methodology of indicator analysis of the System of National Accounts and other data has been analyzed if it can help identify and prevent forming of some possible future price bubbles at the residential market, and therefore negative macroeconomic consequences of their bursting. Comparative indicator analysis and critical values suggest measurements of excessive construction activity that led to forming of price bubbles on the residential market. Econometric analysis has shown that it is not possible to establish critical values as variable of interest is not statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: World over, change of base year in the gross domestic product (GDP) is a standard practice of GDP estimation. However, unless a consistent series of GDP is released with respect to the new base for the earlier period, the existence of multiple growth rates creates problems for applied researchers, policymakers and the general public alike. Faced with such a menu of GDP series researchers often try to interpolate a consistent series of GDP. The main purpose of this paper is to analyses the nature of the data generating process of such multiple interpolated series of quarterly growth rates and tries to discern the consistency of such processes. Design/methodology/approach: The present paper tries to look into the statistical implications and complications of such interpolated quarterly GDP/growth series in India in terms of three series of GDP, namely, with 1999–2000, 2004–2005 and 2011–2012 as its bases. Findings: The analysis reveals that as a result of a change of base year, the nature of the data generating process of the old and new GDP series could undergo changes and experience different breakpoints. While all these conclusions seem to be valid for GDP growth at quarterly intervals, taking the data at annual frequency is less problematic. Practical implications: The observation suggests that in most applied work, researchers may not have the luxury of only working with annual data and certain consistency checks will be necessary to check the veracity of the results based on quarterly data with those based on annual data. Second, moving forward it may be useful for the Authorities to make a transition to a chain-based linking method rather than fixed time-period-based bases as is currently done. Originality/value: The analysis of Indian GDP in this paper is, perhaps, indicative of the fact that usage of quarterly GDP data is to be handled with caution and it is preferable that any serious empirical analysis uses annual GDP data whenever it is available/feasible. The comparison of GDP growth rates at different frequencies and examining the true nature of the process are quite unique in their contribution towards empirical macroeconomic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accounting and reporting of public—private partnerships (PPPs) is a matter of extensive debate and is associated with a compelling incentive to follow the PPP route for the construction of public infrastructures, rather than traditional public procurement, even if the PPP route is not affordable and fails to achieve value for money in comparison to traditional public procurement. The aim of this study is to empirically evaluate the so‐called hidden debt hypothesis. Using a novel dataset for the Portuguese roads sector, we studied the annual reports of the operators since the adoption of International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) 12 from 2010 up until 2017. Our results show a lack of transparency in the reporting of PPPs in public accounts, as well as a material difference between our simulation of the impact of (International Public Sector Accounting Standards) IPSAS 32 in public accounts, and also the impact resulting from the application of the European System of Accounts, according to which official debt figures are calculated. The paper also presents evidence of the effects of the financial bailout on PPPs accounting. Overall, the results show that public debt is understated from 1.96% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 (3,519 million euros), to 3.99% of GDP in 2014 (6,907 million euros) and an average of 11,027 million euros of fixed assets for the period 2010–2017 are not reported in the Portuguese State Accounts. The results highlight the need for a closer alignment between national accounts and accrual accounting based on IPSAS standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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New data on Dutch and British GDP/capita show that at no time prior to 1750, perhaps not before 1800, did the leading countries of northwestern Europe enjoy sustained strong growth in GDP/capita. Such growth in income per head as did occur was highly episodic, concentrated in a few decades and then followed by long periods of stagnation of income per head. Moreover, at no time before 1800 did the leading economies of northwestern Europe reach levels of income per capita much different from peak levels achieved hundreds of years earlier in the most developed regions of Italy and China. When the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, it was not preceded by patterns of pre-modern income growth that were in any way remarkable, neither by sustained prior growth in real incomes nor exceptional levels of income per head. The Great Divergence, seen as the onset of sustained increases in income per head despite strong population growth, and achievement of incomes beyond pre-modern peaks, was a late occurrence, arising only from 1800. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As contribution to the debate about the interpretation of the process of economic growth before the Industrial Revolution, we discuss two concerns about the currently available estimates of historical national accounts and the way in which these estimates should be interpreted. Firstly, we argue that estimates of the long-term trends of economic growth should make use of all information contained in time series of Gross Domestic Product (GDP henceforth), and therefore use standard regression analysis to establish those trends. Secondly, we point to the problem that the time series of historical GDP are based on very different estimation procedures, which probably affect the outcome in terms of the level of GDP per capita in the period before 1850. Both concerns imply that we do not entirely agree with Jack Goldstone's views of pre-industrial growth. In particular, his conclusion that growth was cyclical before 1800 is inconsistent with the available GDP estimates, which point to sustained growth, albeit at a very low rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Transfer Accounts approach is used to assess lifecycle deficit in Poland between the EU accession in 2004 and 2016. In this period, the overall consumption remained relatively stable relative to wages while labour income increased, mainly due to the increased economic activity at higher ages. There is a shift in the generational distribution of consumption and public transfers towards the older age groups, that reflects the changes in the age structure of the population. At the same time, the per capita age profiles of labour income, consumption, life cycle deficit and public transfers in Poland converge to the average levels observed in Europe, however, the gap remains, particularly in public transfers, including public consumption on health. With the continued population ageing it is important to maintain policies that stimulate growth of the labour income that is faster than consumption increases in order to maintain the balance between lifecycle deficit of the young and older generations and lifecycle surplus of the active generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2008 economic crisis was not forecastableby at that time existingmodels of macroeconomics. Thus, macroeconomics needs new tools. We introduce a modelbased on National Accounts thatshows how macroeconomic sectors are interconnected. These connections explain the spread of business cycles from one industry to another and from financial sector to the real economy, which lingages cannot be explained by General Equilibrium type of models. Our model describes the real part of National Accounts (NA) of an economy. The accounts are presented in the form ofa money flow diagram between the following macro-sectors: Non-financial firms, Financial firms, Households, Government, and Rest of the World. The model contains all main itemsin NA, and the corresponding simulation model creates time paths for 59 key macroeconomic quantities for an unlimited future.Finnish data of NA from time period 1975-2012 is used in calibrating the parameters of the model, and the model follows the historical data with sufficient accuracy. Ourstudy serves as a basis for systems analytic macro-models that can explain the positive andnegative feedbacks in the production system of an economy.These feedbacks are born frominteractions between economic units and between real and financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]