Household Satellite Account for France

Abstract

We estimate in a household satellite account (HHSA) the value of French domestic production in 2010 and 1998, using the input method and following Eurostat's recommendations. In line with previous studies, we find that extending the system of national accounts (SNA) frontier of production to domestic activities (house chores, cooking, care …) has a sizeable effect on key macroeconomic indicators (+33 percent GDP, −5 p.p. GDP growth, +50 percent disposable income, +58 percent consumption, and −10 p.p. of purchasing power growth). We conduct a sensitivity analysis to various methodological issues which have not yet been settled by an international benchmark. Quantitatively, the two most important issues are the boundary of household production—we favor a relatively narrow definition—and the use of a gross or a net wage—we prefer gross wage‐. However, estimates are much less sensitive to otherwise greatly debated issues such as which substitute wage to use.