Eric Nilsson wrote: >For the NIPA aware..... > >If you want to come up with a crude estimate for the total surplus generated >by capitalist firms within the US economy, is there anything particularly >wrong with simply summing up various data taken from the National Income >data in NIPA (table 1.14)? > >To wit: > >Proprietors’ income with inventory valuation and capital consumption >adjustments (line 9) >+ Corporate profits income with inventory valuation and capital consumption >adjustments (line 20) >+ Net interest (line 29) > >And then rounding down a bit (to the closest trillion) to remove profit >(surplus) earned by non-capitalist firms (with no employees). I go >back-and-forth on the interpretation of "net interest" and whether it should >be included. > >(Yes I'm aware of Shaikh's work on national accounting but his main >issues--e.g., on productive vs. unproductive labor, net versus gross output, >etc--are not necessarily relevant to a simple calculation of the surplus). > >Eric
Conceptually and practically, it's difficult to separate the labor income from capital income components of proprietors' income. I think other people have done work on this, but I don't know who. Perhaps the OECD and CBO. Doug
