A NEW ARCHITECTURE FOR THE U.S. NATIONAL ACCOUNTS: A REPLY TO ANDRÉ VANOLI

In his review of A New Architecture for the U.S. National Accounts (Jorgenson et al., 2006), published in this issue (Vanoli, 2010), André Vanoli: • Suggests that the methods for integrating and increasing the consistency of national accounts contained in the New Architecture volume and in the recent United Nations (UN) Friends of the Chair Working Group on Integration are only relevant to the United States and other decentralized statistical systems. • Rejects the integration of national accounts with measures of productivity, as proposed in the New Architecture volume, the System of National Accounts (SNA) 2008 (Inter-Secretariat Working Group on the National Accounts, 2009a, 2009b), the OECD’s Manual Measuring Capital (Schreyer, 2009), and the EU KLEMS Growth and Productivity Accounts for 25 of the 27 European Union member countries, completed on June 30, 2008. • Rejects the use of satellite accounts to extend the coverage of the national accounts to near-market and nonmarket goods as detailed in the New Architecture, SNA 1993 (Inter-Secretariat Working Group on the National Accounts, 1993), SNA 2008, the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) (United Nations, 2003), and several recent volumes by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. This response is directed to Vanoli’s specific points and the broader issues that he raises about the future of national accounts. Vanoli suggests that integrated accounts are a common feature of any modern system of national accounts. Yet many nations’ accounts—even those with a central statistical office—must combine data developed by a number of different statistical agencies for purposes