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CONCEPT AND DEFINITION OF INCOME IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
Author(s) -
Reich UtzPeter
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4991.1991.tb00369.x
Subject(s) - economics , national accounts , argument (complex analysis) , point (geometry) , measures of national income and output , public economics , database transaction , welfare , national income and product accounts , process (computing) , positive economics , neoclassical economics , macroeconomics , market economy , computer science , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , mathematics , programming language , operating system
It is a truism that the national accounts have engendered their own concept of income which is different from other contexts such as business accounting, taxation or welfare analysis. Less known are the principles on which this income concept is based. This article is an attempt to specify such principles, investigating in particular the role of the transaction principle, and to derive an income concept therefrom. The crucial point of the argument is whether or not it is appropriate within the system of the national accounts to assign an income to sectors other than the households. The theory is applied to some practical questions which have been discussed in the process of the revision of the SNA.