Measurement and Allocation of Capital Inputs With Taxes: A Sensitivity Analysis for OECD Countries

Taxes affect the measurement of capital inputs. The paper provides an assessment of these impacts in a cross‐country framework where heterogeneity of corporate taxation across industries and asset types is accounted for. The results show that taxes change the relative prices of capital types, which, in turn, has implications on the estimated capital quality and reallocation effects in the traditional growth accounting framework. Omitting tax parameters is a source of mismeasurement, particularly when the rental price of capital assets is constructed using an external rate of return, leading to biased capital costs and profits rates. It is shown that differential taxation results in a deadweight loss in terms of misallocated capital inputs, predominantly due to composition effects within industries.     

Accounting for unexpected capital gains on natural assets in Net National Product

Failure to separate unexpected capital gains and losses on natural assets from depletion breaks the link between Net National Product (NNP) and sustainability. For resource rich countries this can lead to large spurious fluctuations in NNP, making it virtually useless for policy purposes. In contrast, when depletion is measured correctly, the link between NNP and sustainability is restored and there is no reason to expect NNP to be any more volatile than GNP. Oil data for Great Britain and Indonesia are used to illustrate the very significant impact that the treatment of capital gains and depletion can have on NNP.First version received: February 2003/Final version received: September 2003The author would like to thank Jack Pezzey and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

Intangibles,Can They Explain the Dispersion in Return Rates?

It is proven that the observed return rates on capital have an upward bias if firms are producing with unobserved intangible capital. Using a comprehensive firm level database for Germany, this theoretical preposition is supported empirically. Furthermore, by making unobserved intangible capital observable, dispersion in return rates is dramatically reduced. The results support the assumption that a considerable part of the observed dispersion in return rates among firms is attributable to unobserved capital formation in intangible capital.     

Measurement of diverse,irreversible capital

This paper revisits capital measurement through a microeconomic analysis of a simple project consisting of diverse types of irreversibly invested capital. Capital is aggregated using the numeraire. Thus, the proposed method of measurement is a form of accounting. It associates all types of capital in a common framework. Under certainty, user cost and depreciation take internal accounting values that obey three axioms that comprise five conditions. The accounting values proliferate, but they have only a limited relation to market prices or shadow prices. Each type of capital earns the market rate of interest. In practice, under uncertainty, calculation of the accounting values would require projections of basic data, and would be hard to comprehend, especially for outsiders, and would leave room for moral hazard. Because of these obstacles, accounting practice departs from the ideal based on cash flows and strictly limits choice by using prescribed schedules of depreciation. These schedules are interpreted from an economic perspective.     

Comparing approaches to valuing sectoral net investments

In the literature of comprehensive national accounts, national net investments are used to indicate dynamic welfare improvement in an economy. A well-known approach associates national net investments with the shadow value of change in stock of capital assets in an economy. Following this capital stock approach, sectoral net investments can be defined as the shadow value of change in stock of capital assets owned by a sector in an economy. An alternative approach is based on future commodity flows to a sector. This commodity flow approach associates sectoral net investments with the present value of changes in future commodity flows to a sector. In the present paper, I compare these two approaches and prove that they coincide with each other only if the future commodity flows to the sector can be attributed to current stock of capital assets in the sector alone. In empirical studies, commodity flow approach can be a better alternative if the purpose is to estimate the contributions to national net investments of a recipient of future cash flows.     

Deforestation and national accounting

We construct a first best growing economy in which land is being switched continuously from use in forestry to an alternative use. We find that implicitly for such activity to take place there must be no net loss to land owners. This implies no deduction in the national accounts for deforestation. With soil erosion on deforested land, Pigovian taxes must be levied to sustain a first best. We also observe an optimal tax on households for their implicit use of forests as oxygenation sinks.     

试论国民经济中人力资本价值的实现

文章认为,研究人力资本的作用发挥或者说价值实现,比研究人力资本的存量变化更有现实意义。首先分析了人力资本对经济发展正反两方面作用,然后探讨人力资本作用发挥的前提与基础,着重分析人力作用实现的三个主要途径,最后论述了人力资本的价值实现与市场的关系。     

事业单位基建会计应关注的问题

随着社会主义市场经济的不断发展,基本建设投资规模的不断扩大,使基建会计所处的客观经济环境发生了很大变化,对基建会计工作的要求也就越来越高。由于对相关制度的学习检查不够以及会计人员自身素质等原因,一些基本建设单位存在会计核算不规范以及监督不严等问题。     

Economic structure and factor payments

There is a growing body of evidence that the labour payment share in national income varies across countries and over time, suggesting that the popular aggregate Cobb–Douglas production function may not capture income share dynamics. There remains conflicting evidence on the importance of natural resource rents among low income economies and on estimates of the rate of return to produced capital. This paper focuses on the structural differences among countries, confirming the importance of the agriculture sector in estimates of labour and land’s share of factor income based on 81 countries at diverse levels of economic development in the year 2005. I find that cross-country data are best modelled by a CES production function with an elasticity of substitution of 0.8 and that many low income countries have a higher return to capital than the United States.     

How substitutable is natural capital?

One of the recurring themes in the sustainability literature has been the extent to which a loss of natural capital can be made up for in welfare terms by an increase in other forms of capital. This issue was raised early on in the debate on sustainability by Pearce and has never really been resolved. This paper is an empirical attempt to measure the degree of substitutability between different forms of capital. A nested CES production function is used to allow flexibility in the estimated elasticities of substitution. Also, within this specification, natural resources and other inputs are combined in different levels of the function, thus allowing for different levels of substitutability. Institutional and economic indicators are also incorporated in the production function estimated. Results show that the elasticities derived from functions involving land resources were generally around one or greater, implying a fairly high degree of substitutability. Furthermore, changes in trade openness and private sector investment have a statistically significant and direct relationship on the efficiency of production and hence on income generation. No statistically significant relationship between income and any of the institutional indicators was found.      

Valuing nature: From environmental impacts to natural capital

Economic valuation of natural and environmental assets is now a well established practice. Economic analysis provides several methods for discovering the impact on social welfare associated with changes in the ability of these assets to provide different goods and services. In general terms, these valuation exercises have been performed in the framework of Environmental Impact Assessment or, more generally, Cost Benefit Analysis. There is, however, an increasing demand nowadays to go beyond this framework and to value natural capital (natural resource stocks, land and ecosystems) as such. There are two main reasons for this new demand. On the one hand, sustainability requires that proper account should be taken of capital depreciation and, therefore, there is a need to value natural capital changes. This valuation process, nevertheless, only makes sense when some kind of substitution between natural and other forms of capital is allowed. On the other hand, there is also an increasing tendency to demand that the stock of natural capital present in a given territory be valued, either to discover one of the main components of social wealth or to help adequately plan changes in land use. Yet, whereas conventional valuation methods are probably adequate to fulfill the first task, this is less true in the case of the second, while even more difficulties arise in connection with the third one. Even if at first sight the process appears conceptually identical, these tasks are of a different order of magnitude, as the experience of both the World Bank and the Statistics Division of the United Nations in this respect clearly shows.     

Endogenous skill heterogeneity and inflation

This paper examines the implications of ex ante skill heterogeneity for long run inflation. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model in which there are two types of labor (skilled and unskilled), two types of capital (human and physical), and money is introduced via a cash in advance constraint on consumption purchases. Skill heterogeneity is characterized in terms of (i) a parameter governing the ease with which the two types of labor can be substituted for each other in production; and (ii) the “productivity” of human capital in the production of skill. The model includes the accumulation of human capital which in turn creates skill heterogeneity among workers through an efficiency wage mechanism. Numerical experiments indicate that there is a range of parameter estimates in which the Friedman Rule may not be optimal. Furthermore, our quantitative experiments also indicate that there is a range of parameter values in which a greater degree of skill heterogeneity may be associated with a greater preference for inflation. Empirically, we also find that the inflation and heterogeneity correlation is positive.     

An Operative Framework for Total Hicksian Income Measurement: Application to a Multiple-Use Forest

A methodology for estimating total hicksian income in multiple-use forests is presented. The approach consistently incorporates commercial as well as non-commercial economic values and enables the measurement of national accounting aggregates taking into account variation in man-made and natural capital. Innovative solutions are developed (i) for the estimation of non-market values, such as recreation, where an attempt to determine exchange values has been made simulating markets, (ii) for timber, where standing timber valuation methods have been extended to cover uneven stands, and (iii) for carbon fixation valuation, where only permanently fixed carbon after 1990 has been taken into account. The methodology is applied to a multiple-use pinewood in the Guadarrama mountains, near Madrid (Spain). Timber, cattle grazing, hunting, recreation, carbon fixation and conservation values are measured and integrated in the accounting system, using primary microeconomic data from the case study. Results indicate the importance of non-commercial income, which accounts for 51% of the total income, and the social relevance of the analysed forest, implying that only 31% of the total income generated is appropriated by the forest owner.     

Assessing sustainability, a comprehensive wealth accounting prospect: An application to Mozambique

We estimate the wealth of Mozambique in 2000 and 2005 in order to assess the sustainability of its development path. Our methodology builds on Arrow et al. (2010). We show that Mozambican wealth increases through human and physical capital accumulation, while the pressure on natural capital remains low. The growth of total factor productivity enhances the outcome of the different capital assets, but population growth has a strong downward effect on wealth per capita. Results suggest that Mozambican development was sustainable between 2000 and 2005, but these remain ambiguous and are highly sensitive to data and assumptions used.     

基础设施产业的有效组织模式探析

有效组织模式是运输产业可持续发展的重要保障条件。运输产业的有效组织模式主要体现在3个层面：（1）国有资本和社会资本的有机匹配；（2）组织模式的选择；（3）激励性制度的设计。运输产业组织模式必须有国有资本参与，组织模式要体现公企业的特点，并匹配合适的考核制度安排。     

Sectoral Income

What is the income of each sector of an economy? E.g., in the case of a country endowed with petroleum resources, what is the income of its petroleum sector? Here we present a definition of sectoral income, which is compatible with an important line of theoretical literature on comprehensive national accounting. We do so first by splitting national income into individual income and then defining sectoral income by considering the contributions to individual income that the sectors give rise to.     

National Income Accounting and Public Policy

Modern national income accounting was designed in the early 20th century for the purpose of providing improved indicators about the performance of the economy so that government policy makers could better control the economy. The way that performance is measured affects the types of policies used to try to accomplish policy goals. Two attributes of national income accounting are analyzed for their effects on economic policy. First, government production is included in the national income accounts at cost, rather than at market value as private sector output is measured. This biases policy toward a larger public sector. Second, output is measured as a homogeneous dollar amount. This biases policy toward focusing on increasing quantities of inputs and outputs in the production process, rather than on innovation and entrepreneurship, which are the true engines of economic progress. Economic policy could be improved by focusing less on national income as an indicator of policy, and more on the underlying processes that foster economic progress.     

GDP growth in Russia: different capital stock series and the terms of trade

There are different academic assessments of the principal forces behind Russia’s GDP growth. Studies that reconstruct capital stocks using gross fixed capital formation and the perpetual inventory method find that total factor productivity growth has been paramount to GDP growth. On the other hand, capital services datasets that have recently been made available find that capital developments have been instrumental in driving economic growth. We reconstruct a capital stock series for Russia for 1995–2013 and compare the results to two capital services time series using the Solow growth model. We also take into account terms of trade developments that have lent strong support to Russia’s economy. The terms of trade is shown to have been an important factor behind the development of gross fixed capital formation and thus GDP growth.     

MeasuringIncome and Measuring Sustainability

We examine what interpretation can be given to inclusive income , understood to be consumption plus the value of the net increase in all relevant capital stocks. We introduce the concept of instantaneously constant value income , defined as the maximum amount the economy can consume at a moment of time and keep the expected present value of utility of current and future generations constant. We argue that this income concept captures some of the concerns underlying sustainability. Our main result is that inclusive income equals instantaneously constant value income . We show that this result holds in a very general setting and, in particular, carries over to models incorporating technological progress when such progress can be captured by augmented stocks of knowledge. An important implication of our main result is that it provides a very simple method for deriving inclusive income, which does not involve any linearization of the Hamiltonian.     

论人力资源会计的确认与计量

人力资源会计是对人力资源进行价值核算和管理的一种方法。通过对人力资源内涵及会计特性分析,得出了其具有固定资产和无形资产的双重属性的结论,并对人力资源的会计计量模式进行了分析比较,探讨了人力资源会计在我国的应用前景。