The Estimation of Capital Services
Reactions to changes in the global economy were reflected in the preparation of the new SNA 2008 standard where one of the areas of discussion was also the area of capital and capital services. Attempts to their incorporation into the standard were ultimately successful. However, it is not the very core of the system and the concept of non-market output is left unaltered. Therefore, it can be considered as a superstructure of the national accounts system’s basic skeleton. Capital services are based on a different concept of capital than the most of users in the European Union and the Czech Republic is used to. The basis is a view on capital as a flow and not as a stock. It is a matter of what benefit is brought by the capital to its user. This area was very thoroughly discussed and it might be said that the consensus on implementation was not found. However, capital services are a part of the new SNA standard and are also described in the new version of the OECD manual. So far the terminology for this area has not been present in the Czech practice, so it has been compiled by the investigators. It is based on the English translation and takes into account the established Czech terminology of national accounting and economic statistics. It is a topic that belongs to more difficult ones within the national accounting and is almost entirely based on mathematical and statistical modelling.
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