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The U.S. National Income and Product Accounts

Selected Topics

The main topics treated in this conference volume are problems of deflation and quality change, the adequacy of the data used to construct the U.S. national accounts, and the broad theoretical evolution of the U.S. national income and product accounts. As these topics suggest, this volume represents a new stage in the study of national income and product accounts in that emphasis is placed on the information content of the system rather than on the structure of the accounts. This new emphasis is highlighted by the inclusion of a discussion among prominent users of the national accounts—Lawrence Klein, Otto Eckstein, Alan Greenspan, and Arthur Okun—that indicates the difficulties that confront those who utilize this information.

Table of Contents

Prefatory Note
Introduction by Murray F. Foss
1. The United States National Income Accounts, 1947-1977: Their Conceptual Basis and Evolution
Richard Ruggles
Comment: Helen Stone Tice
Comment: John A. Gorman
2. Quality Adjustment in the Producer Price Indexes
John F. Early and James H. Sinclair
Comment: Zvi Griliches
3. Deflation of Defense Purchases
Richard C. Ziemer and Karl D. Galbraith
Comment: Marilyn E. Manser
4. Energy Efficiency, User-Cost Change, and the Measurement of Durable Goods Prices
Robert J. Gordon
Comment: Jack E. Triplett
Reply
5. Concepts of Quality in Input and Output Price Measures: A Resolution of the User-Value Resource-Cost Debate
Jack E. Triplett
6. Round Table of GNP Users
Written Statements
Introductory Statement: Edward F. Denison
The NIPA Accounts: A User’s View: Otto Eckstein
Weekly GNP: Alan Greenspan
NIPA Statistics: A User’s View: Lawrence Klein
The National Accounts in an Inflationary World: Arthur M. Okun
Discussion
Among Panelists (Denison, Greenspan, Klein, Sigel)
From Floor (Bassie, Eisner, Hymans)
7. The Impact of the 1976 NIPA Benchmark Revision on the Structure and Predictive Accuracy of the BEA Quarterly Econometric Model
Bruce T. Grimm and Albert A. Hirsch
Comment: Saul H. Hymans
8. The GNP Data Improvement Project (The Creamer Report)
Overview and Business Cycle Perspective
Morris Cohen
Comment: Rosanne Cole
The GNP Data Improvement Report from the Perspective of Its Use to Measure Economic Growth
Ronald E. Kutscher
Comment: John W. Kendrick
Data Needs in Flow of Funds
John A. Gorman
Comment: Stephen Taylor
The Improvement of Price Data
Albert Rees
Some Comments on Papers on the Creamer Report
Daniel Creamer
A Bureau of Economic Analysis Perspective
Robert B. Parker
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index

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