NATIONAL ACCOUNTING AS A PLANNING TOOL IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE

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.     

THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

After an introduction setting out the general state of work on the national accounts in the Middle East the author considers the principal uses of national accounts statistics in less developed countries. The first group of uses discussed is in connexion with the measurement of growth and the making of international comparisons. The author is of the opinion that in many cases the primary statistical series are so weak that the fact they they are combined together into a series called national income or gross domestic product lends to them a significance which they do not really possess. The real problem is to improve the quality of the primary series. A second use of national accounts statistics is in connexion with fiscal and budgetary policy. In the statistically advanced countries this is one of the most important uses but in the less developed countries budgetary policy has not yet reached a level of sophistication which would call for the use of national accounts data. Moreover, the time factor involved in assembling accurate national accounts estimates militates against their effective use for short term forecasting. The author considers that the most important use for national accounts statistics is to provide a framework for development planning. The United Nations system is not altogether appropriate for this purpose. It grew up primarily as a system for recording income flows but in development planning one is concerned equally with commodity flows with a great deal of attention being focussed upon intermediate products. The proposals of the working group of African Statisticians for an adaptation of the S.N.A. to African countries represents a most important advance in this respect. In the final section of the paper the author advocates a broader definition of capital formation to include developmental expenditure which is not properly defined as fixed capital formation. Education expenditure is cited as an example. It is suggested that in the national accounts it would be desirable to operate with gross concepts. However, the growth of the capital stock is obviously important in less developed countries and it is suggested that statistical techniques be devised to measure it directly wherever possible. Finally, attention is drawn to the ambiguities and weaknesses in the concept of residence as used at present in the S.N.A.     

Misallocation and aggregate productivity across time and space

Productivity is at the core of the large differences in income per capita across countries. What accounts for international productivity differences? I discuss cross‐country differences in the allocation of inputs across heterogeneous production units—misallocation—as a potential factor in accounting for aggregate productivity. Policies and institutions generating misallocation are prevalent in poor and developing countries and may also be responsible for differences in the selection of operating producers and technology used, contributing substantially to aggregate productivity differences across countries.     

The cost of natural capital consumption: Accounting for a sustainable world economy

The System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) has been criticized in this journal for ignoring the benefits of ecosystem services for human well-being. This paper argues that extended national accounts should not attempt measuring economic welfare. Rather, they could and should assess the environmental sustainability of economic activity as the cost of natural capital consumption. The global application of SEEA concepts and methods demonstrates the feasibility of international green accounting. For the world economy, sustainability costs run to about 3 trillion US$ or 6% of world GDP. Large variations at national and regional levels suggest that conventional economic indicators may significantly overstate economic progress in some parts of the world. Data gaps and lack of data comparability affect these first estimates. National and international statistical services should be more aggressive in greening the national accounts. More prudent and more sustainable economic policies might be the result.     

INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC ACCOUNTING: FRAMEWORK FOR A SNA SATELLITE SYSTEM

National accounts have provided the most widely used indicators for the assessment of economic performance, trends of economic growth and of the economic counterpart of social welfare. However, two major drawbacks of national accounting have raised doubts about the usefulness of national accounts data for the measurement of long-term sustainable economic growth and socio-economic development. These drawbacks are the neglect of (a) scarcities of natural resources which threaten the sustained productivity of the economy and (b) the degradation of environmental quality from pollution and its effects on human health and welfare. In the present paper, the authors attempt to reflect environmental concerns in an accounting framework which maintains as far as possible SNA concepts and principles. To this end, the accounting framework is used to develop a "SNA Satellite System for Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting" (SEEA). Environmental costs of economic activities, natural asset accounts and expenditures for environmental protection and enhancement, are presented in flow accounts and balance sheets in a consistent manner, i.e. maintaining the accounting identities of SNA. Such accounting permits the definition and compilation of modified indicators of income and expenditure, product, capital and value added, allowing for the depletion of natural resources, the degradation of environmental quality and social response to these effects. A desk study of a selected country is used to clarify the proposed approaches, to demonstrate their application in future country studies and to illustrate the quantitative effects of the use of modified concepts on the results of analysis.     

PERCEPTIONS, PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF PREPARING LABOUR FORCE ACCOUNTS IN INDIA

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.     

The division of labor is limited by the extent of the law

The present paper starts from the observation that there is still no analysis of private law as a basis for international trade, i. e. private transactions between noncompatriots (cf. Schmidt-Trenz 1990). Although authors like Buchanan, Hayek, Williamson, Böhm and Eucken have talked about the significance of a system of private law for the coordination of private transactions, they left out of their analysis the domain of protective state activity in international private business transactions vis-à-vis the multitude of legal orders and national enforcement organs. p ]It is the intention of this paper to focus upon the problems of the coordination of private foreign trade activities in the shadow of the territoriality of law. Specifically, it is asked: What are the causes for the fragmentation of private law in the world, and what are the consequences of the territoriality of law for the coordination of decisions concerning transactions between non-compatriots? The paper also deals with the question of how international coordination-efficiency can be fostered by international constitutional policy.     

A CONCEPT OF SATELLITE ACCOUNT IN THE REVISED SNA

Within the last two decades, national accountants wondered whether they were able to solve problems that in many respects were of the squaring the circle type: how could they embellish their representation of the economy without having their instrument grow heavier and less flexible? How could they elaborate synthetic frameworks in fields of collective concern that could both be specific and insure a dialogue with macroeconomics? How to keep consistent with the central framework and at the same time experiment with some freedom and flexibility. Satellite accounts are an answer to these questions. Much experience has been accumulated on satellite accounts in both national statistical offices and in international organisations. This paper provides a survey of this work. After an introduction (Part 1) devoted to stating the question, we try to propose a classification for the different types of satellite accounts (Part 2). Then we show their common characteristics (Part 3). However, this exercise would still remain abstract if we did not present samples of currently produced accounts. That is what we do in Part 4 with four examples. These examples have purposely been chosen in fields where many countries and international organizations have heavy investments, thus insuring the specific results will be obvious.     

Accounting for Ecosystems

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment documented the importance of ecosystem services. It is therefore important to include these services in the national system of economic accounts. This requires estimation of “accounting prices” for ecosystems, that is, the marginal value of a change in the size of the system. This raises a number of questions: What do we mean by the “size” of the system? What is the dynamics of the system? How do we quantify the impacts on services from a change in the size of the system and finally how do we value these impacts? We discuss these questions in a few examples of ecosystems, and valuation as such is not the major problem. The major problem is the lack of information of the appropriate dynamic model for most systems. We therefore suggest that economists and ecologists should set priorities on which ecosystems should be the first objects for study for these; we should test the possibilities of estimating the accounting prices.     

农村小额信贷风险分析与对策研究

中国是农业大国,农村人口众多但收入普遍较低,农村小额信贷是国家帮助农户脱贫的一项有效的政策性工具。通过国家统计数据的相关分析,对我国农村信贷风险进行分析,得出小额信贷机构自身缺乏监管机制和农民收入低是造成信贷风险的两个根本原因。在此基础上,结合我国实际国情,提出通过小额信贷股权改革、整合产业链等方法解决农村小额信贷的风险问题。     

浅谈知识经济与中国传统文化

人类社会发展的历史表明，每一种社会制度或经济组织的背后，必定有一种特定的精神文化气质在支撑着。但这种精神文化的创立是以继承为基础的。知识经济时代具有的文化特征是什么？中国传统优秀文化对未来世纪文化建设的价值意义是什么？本文从不同的角度回答了上述两个问题，以求人们充分认识继承与发展的辩证关系     

SUGGESTIONS FOR TREATMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL IN NATIONAL ACCOUNTS—WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM INDIAN DATA*

After giving a brief discussion of the biases that exist in the conventional estimation procedures followed in the construction of national accounts, this paper argues for restructuring of national accounts so as to treat human capital formation as investment rather than consumption and suggests that a beginning should be made in respect of schooling. The argument is based on the notion that “investment” or “capital” is that which yields future income streams and also on the rather obvious point that treating as consumption large outlays that really constitute investment distorts analyses of resource allocation, growth and income distribution, and obscures intersectoral relations. It is pointed out that the proposed restructuring of national accounts is more relevant and important for developing countries, many of which are embarked on investment planning. Another major point emphasized is that the input of students’time should be properly measured and included in the estimates of capital formation by schooling. To illustrate what these proposals imply, revision has been attempted of the estimates of (a) educational outlay (or activity in the education sector), (b) gross capital formation, and (c) gross national product, pertaining to the national accounts of a major developing country, namely India, for the years 1960–61 through 1965–66. The modified estimates, though first approximations and covering only a part of the human capital formation and having a systematically downward bias, nevertheless indicate an upward revision of the estimate of activity in the education sector by about 200 to 300 percent, of gross capital formation by about 50 percent and of the gross national product by 4 to 7 percent. These magnitudes show the substantial order of distortion involved in the conventional procedures.     

ASPECTS OF THE OFFICIAL NATIONAL INCOMES TABLES OF FIJI*

This paper describes and examines three particular features of the official national income tables recently published by the Fiji Government. The need of development planners for a comprehensive set of national accounts incorporating detailed information relating to central government current expenditure, the operations of the private business sector, and the rural household economy has assumed special importance. The uses and limitations to the information contained under these specific headings is discussed and throughout an emphasis is placed on the need for the adoption of consistent and systematic methods of collection and estimation procedures to facilitate planning and decision making. As aids to more detailed interpretation and analysis, the features described are considered to be of general interest to other developing countries.     

SUBSISTENCE ACTIVITIES IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO LATIN AMERICA*

This paper presents some preliminary findings from a research study by the OECD Development Centre into the treatment of subsistence activities in national accounts. It summarizes the results of a questionnaire on country practices, and reports on the findings with respect to shares of non-monetary production in GDP, methods of estimation, and usefulness of the resulting estimates. Among the 48 developing countries covered, the share of non-monetary value added in total GDP ranges from over 40 percent for the poorer countries of Africa to 5 percent or less for the more advanced countries of Latin America and Southern Europe. In countries where rural living standards are much below those in urban areas, non-monetary activities may be very important to the well-being of a large number of people, even though they form only a small part of GDP, and it is still important to make realistic estimates for subsistence output. Agriculture is obviously the main item in non-monetary production, accounting often for over 80 percent of the total. Most countries use some kind of “producers' prices” for valuing agricultural output. Few countries now publish separate figures for non—monetary activities. For many countries, doing so would involve a considerable amount of extra work, but for a number of planning purposes it does seem important to distinguish subsistence activities separately.     

面向规划管理的国外国家公园监测体系研究及启示——以美国、加拿大、英国为例

监测对于国家公园的科学保护管理与规划具有重要意义。中国正处于国家公园体制建设初期，有必要深入研究如何建立国家公园监测体系。以近20年来发展迅速的美国、加拿大和英国的国家公园监测体系为研究对象，基于文献调查和比较分析，从监测内容框架与指标、数据管理与转化、组织和保障3个方面梳理在各自资源与管理背景下国家公园监测体系的基本特点，并提取出面向规划管理的国家公园监测体系建设的16个基本要点，为我国提供借鉴和启示。