A social account for international comparisons

Abstract

International comparisons of social expenditures are a relatively new branch among the framework of comparative intercountry analyses. So far the research work in this field has been done by the Statistical Offices of Austria, Poland and the USSR. One of the most interesting outcomes is the construction of a social account. Such account assembles the expenditures necessary to implement social programmes and the respective revenues to finance them. It emerged as conceptually useful to divide social expenditures into “in cash” and “in kind” whereas for the revenues the “ear-marking”-criterion has been developed. As regards the numerical results comparable data are available for the reference year 1985 so far. As a next step of this project it is intended to up-date the calculations and further elaborate the concepts, which could facilitate the joining of other countries in this exercise.