La comptabilité sociale et les modèles de politique

Abstract

Social accounting and policy models. Social accounting has three objects : to show if the aims of economic policy have been reached ; to show if the instruments of economic policy have been used ; to indicate the causal relations between economic flows. The fulfillment of the first object requires information on the key variables of the economy : incomes, consumption and Saving by social groups (at least wage-earners and entrepreneurs), the price-level, private and public investment, the national product, the level of employment, the balance of payments surplus or deficit. Two equalities relate these variables : value in period 1 X price index X volume index = value in period 2. ; value of national input = value of national output. The instruments of economic policy may be subdivided into those which have a direct, and those which have an indirect effect. Some key variables may be used as instruments of direct control ; when they are, indirect effects are also induced. A free society generally favours instruments of indirect control-moslly monetary and fiscal. Hence the need for detailed information on financial variables : nel income, amortization, direct taxes, income transfers, long and short term capital transactions, active and inactive funds. Knowledge of causal relations is necessary if the full effect of government measures is to be analyzed. The article studies a budget model similar to that used by the Netherlands Central Planning Bureau, for short term forecasts ; it contains «functional » relationships (e. g. between supply and demand on the markets of commodities, exports and imports, and labour ) ; «institutional » relationships (e. g. between the flow of lax receipts and the flow of income ) ; and certain equalities (e. g. between wages, labour costs and output per worker). Two budgets are established : a «prognosis » showing what thê situation would be if economic policy remained unchanged, and a «plan » showing what it would be in the event of new policy measures.