The Measurement of Capital

by Dan Usher

Overview

How is real capital measured by government statistical agencies? How could this measure be improved to correspond more closely to an economist's ideal measure of capital in economic analysis and prediction? It is possible to construct a single, reliable time series for all capital goods, regardless of differences in vintage, technological complexity, and rates of depreciation? These questions represent the common themes of this collection of papers, originally presented at a 1976 meeting of the Conference on Income and Wealth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226843001
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	03/01/1980
Series:	National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth , #45
Pages:	568
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Dan Usher teaches in the Department of Economics at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. He is the author of The Price Mechanism and Meaning of National Income Statistics and The Measurement of Economic Growth.

Table of Contents

Prefatory Note
Introduction by Dan Usher
1. Estimation of Capital Stock in the United States
Allan H. Young and John C. Musgrave
Comment: Thomas K. Rymes
Comment: Jack G. Faucett
Reply
2. Economic Depreciation and the Taxation of Structures in United States Manufacturing Industries: An Empirical Analysis
Charles R. Hulten and Frank C. Wykoff
Comment: Paul Taubman
Reply
3. Alternative Measures of Capital and Its Rate of Return in United States Manufacturing
Robert M. Coen
Comment: Solomon Fabricant
4. New Books on the Measurement of Capital
Stanley Engerman and Sherwin Rosen
Comment: John W. Kendrick
5. Capital Gains and Income: Real Changes in the Value of Capital in the United States, 1946-77
Robert Eisner
Comment: Martin J. Bailey
Comment: J. W. S. Walton
6. Measurement of Income and Product in the Oil and Gas Mining Industries
John J. Soladay
7. The Measurement of Capital Aggregates: A Postreswitching Problem
Murray Brown
Comment: Edwin Burmeister
8. Aggregation Problems in the Measurement of Capital
W. E. Diewert
Comment: Michael Denny
Reply
List of Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index