HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT IN HEALTH: A MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK AND ESTIMATES FOR THE UNITED STATES, 1952–78

Lack of a conceptual basis for measuring human capital investment in health has hampered efforts to expand national accounting systems to include human capital investment. This paper presents a conceptual basis for developing estimates of this health investment, an estimation methodology consistent with the conceptual basis, and preliminary estimates for the United States for 1952-78. While much work remains to be done before comprehensive estimates of investment in health are achieved, it is clear that previous estimates based on answers to the question, “What improves health?” have included some inappropriate expenditures while excluding others that should be included. The conceptual basis presented here leads to a methodology for separating health care costs (not the costs of illness) into maintenance and gross investment. Gross investment can be further separated into net investment and the sum of damages and depreciation but empirical implementation of this step is not attempted here.     

LINKAGES BETWEEN MACRO AND MICRO BUSINESS ACCOUNTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR ECONOMIC MEASUREMENT

The paper shows the relationship between microbusiness accounting based on double-entry bookkeeping and macroeconomic accounting based on quadruple-entry bookkeeping. In order for microaccounts to successfully aggregate into macroaccounts (i.e. preserve macro/micro linkages), quadruple-entry bookkeeping requires that the traditional double entries, recorded by transacting microbusiness units, be "consistent" with each other. In fact national economic accounting implicitly assumes that such consistency is maintained when national "aggregates" are uniquely extracted from national accounts and when national "identities" are claimed to hold true.
The main purpose of the paper is to show important examples where quadruple-entry consistency is not satisfied. These examples typically involve "complex" economic transactions between business units in which the legal form of the transactions do not necessarily represent their economic substance. When this occurs, different business units have genuinely divergent conceptions and perceptions with respect to their mutual economic transactions. Therefore, microbusiness accounts cannot be successfully aggregated into macroeconomic accounts without violating the integrity of microdecision making records.
The conclusion of the paper introduces a new theory called Perpetual Imbalanced Accounting. The theory shows that inconsistent (or imbalanced) economic accounting does tend to become consistent (or balanced) over sufficiently long time periods. Therefore, we must adopt a more dynamic view of national accounting if we desire to preserve successful macro/micro linkages. However, the problems of imbalanced macroaccounting and its statistical consequences cannot be entirely avoided no matter how long the accounting time period is taken. All of the above have important implications for the revision of the United Nations System of National Accounts.     

SOCIAL SECURITY INVESTMENT POLICY AND CAPITAL FORMATION

Large recent surpluses in the social security trust fund accounts provide the potential to increase overall national saving and capital formation. However, these surpluses instead have allowed politicians to increase the non-social security deficit and government consumption.
This paper argues that investing the trust funds in private assets could bring into focus the magnitude of the non-social security deficit and force Congress to cut it. Evidence presented here indicates that the trade deficit, output, and monetary policy are systematic macroeconomic variables that affect relative asset prices. The evidence also supports arguments of Nordhaus and others that a change in trust fund investment policy could lower the trade deficit, raise output, and produce looser monetary policy, thereby increasing Tobin's a and, thus, capital formation. Investing the trust funds in private assets could increase national investment and give the baby-bust generation more capital to use in producing goods and services for themselves and for retired baby-boomers.     

HUMAN CAPITAL: DETERIORATION AND NET INVESTMENT

The current practice in national accounting is to exclude from national product investment in schooling and on-the-job training, except for direct costs of schooling which are included in consumption. Foregone earnings, which form the major part of investment in human capital, go unrecorded.
Much is to be gained in consistency and analytical clarity by treating human capital like physical capital in national accounting. Estimating the amount of foregone earnings net of deterioration, that is, net investment, is a step in this direction.
Using the framework of the life-cycle hypothesis of earnings, and assuming declining-balance deterioration of human capital, estimates of deterioration rates in respect of American males by race and education level are computed for 1960. Every such d is, however, the minimum consistent with the respective costs and benefits profile. Hence an upper limit d is assumed. The model generates for each costs and benefits profile and in respect of either d , a year-by-year series of net investment in human capital. These are used to obtain two estimates (which turn out to be close to each other) of aggregate net investment in American white males in 1960. On the basis of these estimates, aggregate net investment in human capital is found to be about equal to net investment in physical assets (including consumers'durables).
It is also found that the Denison method of estimating the contribution of the increase in human capital to economic growth understates this contribution by a ratio approximately equal to net investment in on-the-job training to returns to human capital. This was about 16 percent in 1960.     

外包与不确定环境的最优资本投资

本文以需求不确定性为切入点,为外包生产行为提出一个解释。当需求存在不确定性时,我们分别考虑存在与不存在外包可能性的两种情况下的最优资本投资模型。我们发现,当存在不确定性时,外包行为具有帕累托改进的性质,而且,在存在外包可能性的情况下,生产品牌产品的垄断厂商可以借此降低固定资产投资。此外,我们还发现外包的成本对于垄断厂商的资本投资具有显著的影响。     

外商在关键性产业投资并购对产业安全的影响

外商在我国关键性产业的投资具有明显的正面效果,但外商尤其是跨国公司加快进入我国关键性产业对我国的产业安全构成一定的隐患。为了保障产业安全,应当在关键性产业引进外资过程中处理好六大关系。     

THE ACCOUNTING TREATMENT OF HUMAN INVESTMENT AND CAPITAL

Defining investment as outlays that increase income- and output-producing capacity, the author presents estimates of human investment in the United States 1929–69, comprising rearing costs, education, training, health, safety and mobility outlays. He develops an economic accounting framework to accommodate human investments and research and development in national and sector capital accounts, with appropriate adjustments to the current accounts to provide consistency. The associated balance sheets and wealth statements are also developed.
The wealth and corresponding income estimates are used to compute rates of return on human, non-human, and total capital. In the business economy the average net rate of return on total capital was 10.6 percent in 1969, compared with 10.0 percent in 1929. The average and marginal rates of return on human capital were generally somewhat higher than on non-human capital throughout the period.     

投资基金、资本市场及其因果分析

本文从宏观和市场发展层面上,利用格兰杰因果分析和有向非循环图（DAG）技术,对我国2002-2010年的证券投资基金与股票、M2、债券和居民存款之间的因果关系进行了分析。研究结果表明,我国金融市场仍处于分割状态,证券投资基金还没有有效地发挥联系渠道和资产优化配置的功能。证券投资基金存在着导致资本市场风险波动的羊群行为和惯性行为,这是对发展不完善的资本市场所作出的被动性的适应性反应。中国证券投资基金对股票市场具有显著性影响,规范和发展证券投资基金对促进股票市场健康发展具有重要作用。     

NATURAL DISASTERS,DAMAGE TO BANKS,AND FIRM INVESTMENT

This article investigates the effect of banks’ lending capacity on firms’ investment. To identify exogenous shocks to loan supply, we utilize the natural experiment provided by Japan's Great Hanshin‐Awaji earthquake in 1995. Using a unique data set that allows us to identify firms and banks in the earthquake‐affected areas, we find that the investment ratio of firms located outside the earthquake‐affected areas but having a main bank inside the areas was significantly smaller than that of firms located outside the areas and having a main bank outside the areas. Our findings suggest that loan supply shocks affect firm investment.     

STATE‐LEVEL CAPITAL AND INVESTMENT: UPDATES AND IMPLICATIONS

This paper presents state‐by‐state capital stock and gross investment estimates for 1990–2007. I follow the methodology of Garofalo and Yamarik (The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84, 2002, 316–23) and apportion the national capital stock to the individual states using one‐digit NAICS income data. I then test the soundness of the data by estimating a Cobb–Douglas production function and a Solow growth model using a variety of panel data estimators. Under both models, I obtain estimates of the output elasticity for capital that are plausible and close to the observed national income share of one‐third. (JEL O47, O51, R11)     

MEASUREMENT BIAS IN PRICE INDEXES FOR CAPITAL GOODS*

The official U.S. price deflators for investment goods continue to be based on defective methodology, despite frequent criticism in recent years. This paper contributes new price information, which is combined with the empirical results from other studies to yield a revised investment deflator for the 1954–1963 period which (a) rises much more slowly than the official index and (b) declines relative to a revised price index for consumption expenditures.     

资本投入测量综述

资本投入测量是经济学的一个难题,但很多经济问题(如经济增长和全要素生产率)的研究都需要测量资本投入.该文首先介绍了有关资本投入测量的理论,包括资本存量估计、资本租赁价格估计以及不同类型资本投入的加总;在资本理论基础上分析了我国已有资本投入测量研究中存在的问题;最后讨论了目前国际上资本投入测量研究的热点问题.     

AN ANALYSIS OF REVISIONS OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS DATA FOR 40 COUNTRIES

The paper analyzes annual revisions of figures for G.N.P. and 8 of its components in 40 countries. It arrives at the conclusion that first estimates are very often significantly biased downwards, especially Private Consumption, Fixed Investment, G.D.P. and G.N.P. Also successive revisions are sometimes correlated (negatively in most cases). The distribution of revisions differ as between developed and developing countries.     

资本投入测量综述

资本投入测量是经济学的一个难题,但很多经济问题(如经济增长和全要素生产率)的研究都需要测量资本投入.该文首先介绍了有关资本投入测量的理论,包括资本存量估计、资本租赁价格估计以及不同类型资本投入的加总;在资本理论基础上分析了我国已有资本投入测量研究中存在的问题;最后讨论了目前国际上资本投入测量研究的热点问题.