National Accounts at a Glance 2009
National Accounts data is more than just GDP. This book, to be published annually, and its related database present national accounts in a way that reflects the richness inherent in the data and the value that represents for analysts and policymakers. It responds to the Stiglitz Commission’s recommendation that policymakers look beyond GDP to get a fuller picture of the entire economy.
In particular it uses national accounts data to show important findings about households and governments, including important new series on gross adjusted household income and non-financial fixed assets of households. It presents each of the series on a two-page spread, with the page on the left providing information on the meaning, usage, and comparability of the data and the page on the right presenting data from 1995 onwards for the OECD countries as well as graphics highlighting differences among countries.
This book includes OECD’s unique StatLink service, which enables readers to download Excel® versions of tables and graphs. Look for the StatLink at the foot of each table and graph.
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Consumption of Fixed Capital
Economically, consumption of fixed capital, (depreciation), is best described as a deduction from income to account for the loss in capital value owing to the use of capital goods in production. Its primary importance in an accounting sense is in its use as the “netting” component in estimates of net domestic product, etc., as described in earlier sections, and, so, in its ability to permit analyses that are closer to a welfare perspective than gross measures. It also constitutes one part of the costs of capital services and so plays a role in productivity measurement. Moreover it has a direct impact on GDP because estimates of non-market value-added explicitly include a component for depreciation.