Challenges of Globalization in the Measurement of National Accounts (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth)

By: Nadim Ahmad, Brent R. Moulton, J. David Richardson, and Peter van de Ven

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Synopsis: An essential collection at the intersection of globalization, production supply chains, corporate finance regulation, and economic measurement. The substantial increase in the complexity of global supply chains and other production arrangements over the past three decades has challenged some traditional measures of national income account aggregates and raised the potential for distortions in conventional calculations of GDP and productivity. This volume examines a variety of multinational business activities and assesses their impact on economic measurement. Several chapters consider how global supply chains complicate the interpretation of traditional trade statistics and how new measurement techniques can provide information about global production arrangements. Other chapters examine the role of intangible capital in global production, including the output of factoryless goods producers and the problems of measuring R&D in a globalized world. The studies in this volume also explore potential ways to enhance the quality of the national accounts by improving data collection and analysis and by updating the standards for measurement.