ALBERT

Notes: This survey was conducted on the perceived popularity of PERT and PERT-type management systems; whether PERT'S applications were static, increasing, or decreasing, and whether its use was by choice or imposition. The extent of applications of PERT for managing various types of research and development (R&D) was examined with the view to ascertaining its individual popularity when applied to (a) basic research, (b) applied research, or (c) development projects. In addition, an inquiry was made into the estimated expense of PERT systems to plan and control projects as a percentage of the budget. The results of the survey are presented and discussed relative to various sizes of R&D organizations.

Notes: The calculation of purchasing power parities and quantity comparisons for a given year provides interesting information about the relative importance of countries. However, it is necessary to make these estimates annually in order to enable users to apply these parities for international comparison of annual data expressed in national currency. The paper deals with the problems related to merging spatial comparisons and temporal volume and price movements for the countries of the European Community. For these countries full information was collected in 1975 and in 1980, whereas in the intermediate years some price data were collected and price indices at a detailed level have also been collected. First the theoretical problems of consistency between the spatial results and temporal indices are discussed. Because no immediate consistency can be obtained, several methods are proposed to achieve consistency, by estimating one unique set of spatial and temporal indices. The available information for the period 1975-80 has been used in order to test the numerical differences between two sets of parities and price indices over time. Besides theoretical reasons for inconsistency, it is also necessary to take into account errors in the price observations or in the price indices. The results presented in the paper should be considered as provisional and further work will be undertaken to obtain better insights into the inconsistency between these sets of data.

Notes: In the course of the nearly two decades since the revised SNA was developed, the role of pensions and insurance in the developed western economies has been significantly altered. The United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA) is not fully consistent in its treatment of pension and insurance transactions. This paper examines whether, in view of the changed institutional context, a modification of the SNA treatment of this complex of flows would be desirable. It investigates the impact on household income and saving of adopting a somewhat more consistent transactor/transaction approach for all pension and insurance transactions. Four main topics are covered: (1) social security, (2) private pensions, (3) life insurance, and (4) casualty insurance. Each is considered in terms of the treatment of contributions, the treatment of benefits, and the handling of reserves and the income generated by them. The same sorts of problem arise in all four cases.

Notes: This paper describes the composition of the public sector in the United Kingdom and traces the development and contribution to the economy of the three main sub-sectors-central government, local government and public corporations—over the past thirty years. Relevant data for output, employment, fixed capital formation and national wealth set the public sector into perspective with the economy as a whole and illustrate how its share of human and other resources has changed over the years. While all four measures show the public sector share of the total to have been around 30 percent in 1980, historically the changes have moved very differently. The slow, but fairly steady, increase in the share of employment and output contrasts with very marked changes in the other two measures. Although public sector fixed investment nearly doubled in real terms between 1950 and 1980 its share of total investment declined from 48 to 31 percent, a much smaller share being taken by dwellings, electricity supply and the railways. In terms of the share of national wealth the public sector moved from a state of indebtedness to the rest of the economy in the fifties and sixties to a position of holding nearly one third of the value of tangible and financial assets in the late seventies.A small part of the paper considers the international dimension, but because few other countries use the concept of a public sector, this section examines only the relationship between total tax revenue and GDP in a number of countries and employment in general government.The problems of determining the boundary of the public and private sectors occurs most frequently at the interface between public corporations and private enterprises; the rules for deciding classification are set out in so far as they can be specified.The last sections of the paper put the statistics into their policy context and consider the value of public sector aggregates. The conclusion is that a general case cannot be made to justify assembling public sector aggregates for all countries; the need will be determined by the economic policies being pursued in a particular country. Although the United Kingdom gives considerable prominence to a public sector financial aggregate, the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement, the functions of the public corporations and the rest of the public sector are so disparate that consolidated accounts for the public sector are no longer prepared.

Notes: The unsolved problems of measurement of international transactions may have consequences which are serious both for policymakers and for those undertaking research. Emphasis is placed on the need for users of data to understand and take into account the limitations and qualifications attached to them.The causes of deterioration in the quality of estimates of international transactions likely lie in their changing pattern. After a brief discussion of the basic sources and methods used, the paper selects for comment possible measurement problems related to inflation, taxation, illegal transactions, and affluence.A description follows of the improvement to data which has been achieved through exchanges and comparisons between trading partner countries. Efforts to use econometric analysis to point to error sources have, however, proved less rewarding.The paper concludes with a section on the linkage of flow and stock estimates.

Notes: Expanded measures of government product normally include imputations for the services of government capital. This article discusses several approaches to measuring the value of the services of government capital and focuses on the conceptual and empirical difficultes associated with making such imputations. In addition, four sets of alternative estimates for 1948–79 are presented.