Meaning and measurement of national accounts statistics
Please cite the paper as:
“Frits Bos, (2013), Meaning and measurement of national accounts statistics, World Economics Association (WEA) Conferences, No. 1 2013, The political economy of economic metrics, 28th January to 14th March, 2013”
Abstract
This paper provides an introductory overview of the meaning and measurement of national accounts statistics. Attention is paid to the various uses of national accounts, the role of the international guidelines, the relationship with economic theoretic and administrative concepts and the measurement practice. The latter is also compared with compiling other statistics, econometric modelling and a barometer: what are the similarities and differences?
Professor Bos. Two points. 1) Which is the (relevant) role of the national accounts as a branch of applied economics? 2) The statistical sense in econometrics or time series analysis is different from the one needed in national accounts (two examples: the quality, design, etc. of a survey; the precision linked with unknown standard errors). Perhaps the “widespread illiteracy” is a result of the poor statistical background in the second sense mentioned…