The contemporary standards of national accounts - applicability and limitations in economic growth and productivity studies

The purpose of this article is to survey the contemporary standards of modern national accounts, and to assess their applicability in tracing differences in economic growth across countries. In order to perform a growth accounting study one requires good quality and mutually comparable information about the three main macroeconomic indicators: i) production output, ii) capital input and iii) labour input. Thus, the author outlines the sources and reasons behind the creation of such statistics as well as the national accounts standards they comply with. Each of the above indicators is discussed in respect of these standards, limitations in applying and availability in international databases. The study also provides insights into the current stage of development of the System of National Accounts and how different measurement standards can augment inference on economic growth.