FEATURES OF THE HIDDEN ECONOMY IN THE NETHERLANDS

This paper presents survey results on the size and structure of the hidden labour market in The Netherlands. According to the results total income from hidden work is at least 1 percent of national income. The hidden income is shared by more than one million participants (nearly 12 percent of the corresponding population). This result is lower than various other estimates of the magnitude of the hidden economy. Some definitional and methodological issues are discussed in order to explain the difference from the other estimates.
The most notable results of the survey refer to the structure of the hidden labour market. At one end of this market are people with a high wage rate, working relatively few hours. They have the characteristics which given them a favourable position in the formal labour market. At the other end are people with low hidden wages, who work more hours. They have difficulty in finding a formal job. The income from hidden labour is distributed in very much the same way as income from formal activities. There is no evidence that the hidden labour market compensates those who are worse off in the formal economy.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME BETWEEN SOCIO-ECONOMIC GROUPS IN THE NETHERLANDS

This paper reports on a study designed to improve the information on income flows and income distribution in the Netherlands national accounts by building a bridge between the national accounts and income tax statistics. The methods used are described in some detail, and the significance of the results obtained is discussed. The figures show rather substantial fluctuations in the share of proprietors relative to that of wage earners. This result is not unexpected, since the share of proprietors is much more sensitive to the level of economic activity, but it does limit the usefulness of the figures for short-run economic policy determination. In the longer run, however, they do show what the development of the average incomes of the various social groups has been, and to what extent government action has contributed to that development.     

PROBLEMS IN THE COMPILATION OF INPUT-OUTPUT TABLES IN THE NETHERLANDS

This article deals with some aspects of the compilation of input-output tables (I.O. tables). A global view is given of the way in which I.O. tables are compiled in The Netherlands. It is indicated that in The Netherlands a number of developments are in progress that have led to an extension of the uses that are made of I.O. tables. The changing demands on I.O. tables that result from these developments can be met in future to an important degree. This has been made possible by extending and improving basic statistics and by increasing the uses made of automation facilities. Some problems remain, however, and one of these problems takes a central place in this article. This is the problem of accuracy and continuity: how can yearly I.O. tables be compiled that combine accuracy with consistency over time. Accuracy means here that the tables should be as complete as possible and in optimal accordance with all available information. Consistency over time means that estimates of details of I.O. tables compared with the same estimates for previous years reflect real economic developments. It is obvious that those two demands may conflict, particularly for years in which new information becomes available. It then must be decided whether accuracy or consistency in time deserves priority. What problems result from this decision and what are the consequences for the yearly I.O. tables? The problems arising from the conflicting demands of accuracy and continuity apply to the Netherlands in the last few years. This led to a revision of I.O. tables and national accounts for 1977. This revision resulted in an increase of estimated national income of more than 6 percent. For some components the adjustments have been much larger; this is particularly true for the services sector. More information on the 1977 revision is given in an annex.     

伦敦新城规划建设的经验教训和对北京的启示

以有关资料文献为基础,对伦敦新城规划建设进行研究,总结其成功经验包括人本主义思想与实践、较为科学合理的规划设计理念与方法、高效的立法与较为灵活的经营机制;着重指出伦敦新城建设的教训和不足,包括新城思想、规划手段、管理体系、区域协调和社会规划都存在问题。可为当今北京的新城建设提出有益启示。     

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS FOR THE NETHERLANDS

In this paper the authors present Socio-economic Accounts for the Netherlands for the year 1981. Detailed information on income components, consumption components and savings for 52 household types are provided. The household types are a cross-classification of household size, income source and income level. For each income and consumption component, the sum of the amounts over the houshold types and three intermediary funds equals the macro amount in the National Accounts. The accounts are constructed by intregating macrodata from the National Accounts and microdata from the Income Statistics and the Budget Survey.     

THE GOVERNANCE OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES: THE QUEBEC EXPERIENCE

ABSTRACT ** ** Résumé en fin d'article; Zusammenfassung am Ende des Artikels; resumen al fin del artículo.
: Have public enterprises become obsolete policy instruments? Should they be privatized or can their governance be radically transformed so that they could still be used as policy instruments? The world around them has changed and forced governments to move. After a discussion on the arguments in favour of privatization, this article suggests an analysis of three cases in the Canadian province of Quebec. Considering the pressures linked to the liberalization of trade resulting from NAFTA, this article suggests that the governance of public enterprises can be transformed and adapted and that consequently, it is not useful or necessary to privatize them. There is in reality a lot of room in the public enterprise governance to reform them, room that has been neglected over the last decades.     

SELECTED PROBLEMS OF INTER-COUNTRY COMPARISONS ON THE BASIS OF THE EXPERIENCE OF THE EEC

The formidable expansion in the scope of the United Nations International Comparison Project has brought into evidence limitations of the methodology used in the first three phases. The author considers that there are two indispensable conditions needed to give renewed impetus to the ICP: (a) the objectives must be redefined, and (b) the methodology must be built on an entirely new basis. He considers the broad lines of such an evolution to be the following. (a) The objective of volume comparison must be kept distinct from that of purchasing power comparison, given that both the basic material and the formulae to be used at the aggregate level differ in the two cases. (b) At the basic heading level, it is proposed, for both volume and purchasing power comparisons, to replace the multilateral approach by a “minimum scale” binary and unilateral approach, and to use the EKS method. This will make possible an improvement in the accuracy of the estimates, a reduction in the overall costs, and a drastic reduction in execution time. What is more, it would be possible to regionalize the worldwide comparison, in the sense that the results of the basic heading comparisons already obtained at the regional level for regional purposes can be used as an input in the framework of the worldwide comparison. At the aggregate level, in the framework of volume comparison, it is proposed that a constant price procedure in the spatial sense should continue to be used. It is, however, proposed that the prices of the set of countries (GK) be replaced by a structure of common “equi-distant” prices (G). This would permit the elimination of the significant systematic distortions observed in the comparison between rich and poor countries in the first three phases of ICP. What is more, this gives maximum stability to results obtained for the same countries at different geographical levels. By using a set of common “equi-distant” quantities, the same advantage can be obtained in the purchasing power comparison.     

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.     

面向公共政策制定的区域规划--国外区域规划的编制对我们的启示

我国的区域规划经过50多年的发展历程,形成了一个比较庞大的内容体系和一套比较完整的技术程序。但技术性仅仅是区域规划属性之一,政策属性才是区域规划的本质属性,区域规划的科学性是为政策性服务的,新时期的中国区域规划改革应该首先确立和实现区域规划的公共空间政策属性。文章分析了我国区域规划当中政策缺陷及其影响,从公共政策的角度出发,介绍和分析了国外区域规划中的综合性与微观性、规划地位的法定性、规划行政程序的开放性、规划实施手段的多样性,并阐述了国外区域规划对于我国区域规划改革可供借鉴的个人观点。