Measuring Capital - OECD Manual 2009
Second edition
Capital - in particular of the physical sort - plays several roles in economic life: it constitutes wealth and it it provides services in production processes. Capital is invested, disinvested and it depreciates and becomes obsolescent and there is a question how to measure all these dimensions of capital in industry and national accounts. This revised Capital Manual is a comprehensive guide to the approaches toward capital measurement. It gives statisticians, researchers and analysts practical advice while providing theoretical background and an overview of the relevant literature. The manual comes in three parts - a first part with a non-technical description with the main concepts and steps involved in measuring capital; a second part directed at implementation and a third part outlining theory and a more complete mathematical formulation of the measurement process.
Scope of Capital Measurement and Classifications
Most but not all of the stock and flow measures considered in this Manual relate to “produced”, non-financial objects (fixed assets and inventories) that are included in gross capital formation as defined in the national accounts. Produced non-financial assets come into being via the production process or as imports.
Table 9.1 gives the full listing of non-financial assets recognised in that system. For a treatment of other natural resources such as subsoil assets, the reader is referred to the Handbook on Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (United Nations et al. 2003) and to Section 18.3. Note that two items related to non-produced assets are part of the produced assets. These are major improvements to land and costs of ownership transfer on non-produced assets.