Wasn't there a rush to improve data as in important element of WW I by the
people associated with what became the NBER? I assume that Kuznets was
connected to that effort, or at least some residue of it.
Jim Devine wrote:
> At 03:50 PM 5/17/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >Jim Devine wrote:
> >
> >>And the idea that GDP was "socio-politically constructed" sounds like a
> >>conspiracy theory. People like Simon Kuznets developed the national
> >>income and product accounts in order to get some idea of what was
> >>happening to the economy as a whole.
> >
> >No it doesn't sound like a conspiracy theory. The idea of "the economy as
> >a whole" is a relatively recent historical innovation; people didn't think
> >of an abstraction known as the economy until about 150 years ago. Why do
> >we keep our accounts in national form? Why do we think of The Economy as
> >nationally bounded? Why is it that only final sales are counted? (I think
> >about half of all transactions are intermediate, and don't appear in the
> >NIPAs.) Why is it that most nonmonetary transactions are excluded? Why is
> >it that homeowner's rent is imputed? (Ever look at the imputations table
> >in the annual NIPAs? Lots of stuff is imputed.) Why was software once
> >counted as an expense, and now appears as an investment? Why do the flow
> >of funds accountants treat consumer durables as an investment, and the
> >NIPA folks treat them as consumption? Why do we separate the flow of funds
> >and the NIPAs, though the SNA model unifies them? There are a whole lot of
> >assumptions embedded in the NIPAs that we think of as perfectly "natural,"
> >but aren't natural at all.
>
> it sounds conspiratorial the way Charles said it. But you're right that the
> NIPAs reflect the process of political conflict.
>
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
