摘要:

The United Nations' newly completed study of purchasing power parities covering 34 countries varied in region, income level, and form of economic organization shows the systematic differences between the usual view of the structure of the world economy arising out of international comparisons based upon foreign exchange rate conversions and the structure one sees when actual prices are available.The realper capitaGDP of developing countries is understated relative to developed countries when exchange rates are used in converting countries' national income accounts to a common currency, with the degree of understatement for any two countries being inversely related to theper capitaincome difference between them. The reason for this is that relative prices in the non‐traded goods sector are lower relative to traded goods prices in low income countries. The systematic pattern observed in the 1975 data of the 34 countries has been extrapolated over time and space to get estimates of GDP for other years and countries.In the absence of detailed price data, the real shares of final expenditures devoted to particular components of the total can only be estimated as the proportion of own currency total expenditure devoted to the components. The observed differences in the pattern of prices of poor countries relative to rich for different components makes this clearly wrong for international comparisons, and in systematic ways. For example, (i) the relative price of services compared with commodities in poor countries is lower than in rich; so the apparent tendency of the share of services to rise as a country's income rises disappears whenrealquantities are considered; similarly, (ii) the relative price of capital goods is greater in poor countries compared with rich ones, so the difference in investment ratios out of GDP between rich and poor countries is understate

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00241.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Although national and sector balance sheets have long been regarded as part of the national accounting framework, for a variety of reasons their compilation by official statisticians has been the exception rather than the rule. A programme of balance sheet work in the United Kingdom Central Statistical Office has recently been completed and the results published. The theoretical and practical problems arising in the course of this work are described and discussed. Summary results are given together with an interpretation of the main changes in the sectoral composition of national wealth between 1957 and 1975.

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00242.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper discusses the history of the French development of satellite accounts during the late 1960s and 1970s, noting the circumstances that led to the initiation of work in this area and describing the types of problem encountered. It then goes on to draw, on the basis of the French experiment, more general conclusions and to present a proposed accounting framework. The final section considers the concept of social expenditure, but concludes that, at least for the present, it is not possible to construct a useful global concept.

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00243.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The economy of Liberia is one in which, in spite of past satisfactory growth performance, a high level of income inequality persists. In 1977, for instance, a mere 2 percent of the people accounted for some 33 percent of nation‐wide wage income. These people live disproportionately in Montserrado County in which the capital city is located. While each of the other counties are largely rural and poor, each has far lower intra‐county inequality than wealthy Montserrado.Intersectoral location of the income‐earner, average income levels and the extent of access to human capital formation opportunities are some characteristics of the economy that have been found to explain significant portions of intercounty variations in the levels of household income concentration. Income inequality is reduced with increases in the extent of agricultural activity as the share of the top income group falls and that of the bottom group rises. The reverse happens with growing urban‐area activity. Higher income concentration occurs with rising per capita incomes as the top group's income share rises and the bottom income group's share falls. While this appears to be an instance of the Kuznet U‐shaped hypothesis, here there are no definite signs of a possible reversal any time soon. The levels of access to educational facilities move inversely with the level of inequality, with expanding elementary facilities benefiting the poorer people at the expense of the wealthy while the reverse happens in the case of expanding secondary educational f

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00244.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In the United States, the life‐cycle relationship between initial Social Security contributions and subsequent benefits causes the effect of Social Security on income distribution to be overestimated in a single‐period analytical framework. By separating the annuity from the redistributive aspects of Social Security we provide a life‐cycle framework for measuring its net effect on redistribution. To this point in its history, we find all income classes have received positive net life‐cycle income transfers and, in an absolute sense, upper‐income groups have done at least as well as lower‐income groups. This suggests a reason for the near‐universal support of Social Security by past generations, as well as the controversy which now surrounds it. As it becomes apparent to younger cohorts of taxpayers that many of them will be net losers, it is inevitable that Social Security will be subject to the same controversy as other welfare programs which attempt to redist

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00245.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Using data from the 1973 National Survey of Family Growth, the present study analyzes, for blacks and whites separately, the impact of female market activity on the inequality of the income distribution among households. The family life cycle is divided into three stages, according to the presence and age of children: (1) the interval between marriage and the birth of the first child, (2) the child‐rearing interval, and (3) a final period which begins when all the children have reached school age. Using the coefficient of variation as an indicator of inequality, the empirical results show that in period 1, the contribution of white working wives has a large equalizing impact, while that of their black counterparts results in a slight increase in dispersion. In the child‐rearing and post child‐rearing stages, the labor supply of mothers decreases family income inequality by a small amount for both black and white households. A decomposition of the squared coefficient of variation of family income is presented to aid in the interpretation of these fin

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00246.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The change in goods and services available in a national economy brought about by the shifting of external price relationships is referred to as the terms of trade effects. This paper reviews the various methods which have been devised since the war to define and quantify such effects on the Gross National Product. The statistical annex shows that, as far as OECD countries are concerned, the differences between the various measures are not significant. Whereas the effects from terms of trade represented, on average, less than one half of one percent of the GNP of OECD countries during the 1960's the percentage has increased substantially since 1973, due most importantly to the increase in the oil price; by 1977 (on a 1970 price basis), it had reached 5 percent of GNP in Japan and up to 6 percent in Italy. On the other hand, the extreme case of Saudi Arabia where various formulas generate effects amounting to between one half and the whole of GNP, indicates that the measurement of terms of trade effects by various methods may give different results.

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00247.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0034-6586    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4991.1981.tb00248.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1981

数据来源: WILEY