Title: Measuring Social Welfare in the U.S. National Accounts
Abstract: Abstract The National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs), produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), provide policy makers with critical information on current economic conditions and their creation has been recognized as a signature accomplishment. Despite their value for many purposes, the limitations of the NIPAs also have long been recognized. The existing accounts offer a framework on which a set of expanded economic accounts designed to meet additional needs can be built. There are multiple possible objectives for such an expanded set of accounts. First, expanded accounts might provide more complete measures of investment in capital—broadly speaking, any stock that contributes to the nation’s future productive capacity—that include the household investments in education that are so critically important in a knowledge economy. Second, expanded accounts could provide more accurate measures of output and productivity in key sectors such as education, health and government. Third, expanded accounts could contribute to the assessment of trends in societal welfare or well-being. Information on how the output of a society is distributed could be an important part of this.