Premium
ACCOUNTING FOR GOLD: THE SOUTH AFRICAN CASE
Author(s) -
Moll Terence
Publication year - 1992
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.1475-4991.1992.tb00419.x
Subject(s) - national accounts , economics , productivity , growth accounting , real gross domestic product , macroeconomics , gold standard (test) , econometrics , accounting , monetary economics , total factor productivity , statistics , mathematics
Real output measures in the UN System of National Accounts should be continually re‐evaluated, to ensure they are providing indicators appropriate for user needs. The South African gold mining industry is an intriguing case in which the conventional output indicators are highly misleading for various analytical purposes, largely because the usual background assumptions are particularly invalid. Due to the size of the industry, its precise treatment can have sizeable effects on estimates of the growth of GDP, particularly over periods when the price of gold changes. A number of easily produced additional output measures are suggested to help analyse productivity growth and differences between the growth of real output and real incomes.