IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/new/wpaper/1814.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Weight of Essentials in Economic Activity

Author

Listed:
  • Baki Guney Isikara

    (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research)

Abstract

THIS PAPER HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM CIRCULATION TEMPORARILY. PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. This paper is interested in the weight of essential goods and services in economic activity. The first measure is concerned with the sphere of production, which makes use of World Input-Output Tables to construct net-product subsystems so as to estimate the total (direct and indirect) share of essentials in aggregate product. The second measure approaches the same question from the sphere of consumption by relying on OECD data on household final consumption expenditures. The results lie roughly in the interval of 45-70% and 50-75% in the spheres of production and consumption, respectively, where the lower and upper bounds are given by essentials in the narrow and broad sense, respectively. Interesting patterns are captured by comparing different groups of countries. Moreover, evidence is found for the aggregate-level counterpart of Engel’s Law. The results have important implications when read in the context of the literature on the welfare state, de(commodification), universal basic income, and the need to adjust consumption and production in response to the looming ecological crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Baki Guney Isikara, 2018. "The Weight of Essentials in Economic Activity," Working Papers 1814, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:new:wpaper:1814
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/econ/2018/NSSR_WP_142018.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcel P. Timmer & Erik Dietzenbacher & Bart Los & Robert Stehrer & Gaaitzen J. Vries, 2015. "An Illustrated User Guide to the World Input–Output Database: the Case of Global Automotive Production," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 575-605, August.
    2. Robert C. Allen, 2017. "Absolute Poverty: When Necessity Displaces Desire," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3690-3721, December.
    3. Deepankar Basu & Duncan K. Foley, 2013. "Dynamics of output and employment in the US economy," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(5), pages 1077-1106.
    4. Angus Deaton & Alan Heston, 2009. "Understanding PPPs and PPP-based national accounts," Working Papers 1186, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    5. Oskar Lange, 1937. "On the Economic Theory of Socialism: Part Two," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(2), pages 123-142.
    6. Angus Deaton & Alan Heston, 2010. "Understanding PPPs and PPP-Based National Accounts," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-35, October.
    7. Oskar Lange, 1936. "On the Economic Theory of Socialism," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(1), pages 53-71.
    8. Michael Cichon, 2013. "The Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202): Can a six‐page document change the course of social history?," International Social Security Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(3-4), pages 21-43, July.
    9. Robert C. Allen, 2017. "Absolute Poverty: When Necessity Displaces Desire REVISED," Working Papers 20170005, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jun 2017.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baki Güney Işıkara, 2021. "The Weight of Essentials in Economic Activity," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 95-115, March.
    2. Moatsos, Michail, 2020. "Why PPP exchange rates should be avoided in global poverty estimates," EconStor Preprints 218972, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    3. Decerf,Benoit Marie A, 2022. "Absolute and Relative Poverty Measurement : A Survey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10008, The World Bank.
    4. Ravallion, Martin, 2018. "An exploration of the changes in the international comparison program’s global economic landscape," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 201-216.
    5. Michail Moatsos & Achillefs Lazopoulos, 2024. "Stress-testing the international poverty line and the official global poverty statistics," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Sédi-Anne Boukaka & Giulia Mancini & Giovanni Vecchi, 2021. "Poverty and inequality in Francophone Africa, 1960s–2010s," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 1-29, January.
    7. Hanjie Wang & Qiran Zhao & Yunli Bai & Linxiu Zhang & Xiaohua Yu, 2020. "Poverty and Subjective Poverty in Rural China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 219-242, July.
    8. Semieniuk, Gregor, 2024. "Inconsistent definitions of GDP: Implications for estimates of decoupling," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    9. Robert C. Allen, 2017. "Absolute Poverty: When Necessity Displaces Desire," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3690-3721, December.
    10. Decerf,Benoit Marie A, 2023. "An Axiomatic Study Contrasting the Two Main Poverty Line Rules," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10519, The World Bank.
    11. Adomas Klimantas & Aras Zirgulis, 2020. "A new estimate of Lithuanian GDP for 1937: How does interwar Lithuania compare?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(2), pages 227-281, May.
    12. Ameye, Hannah & De Weerdt, Joachim & Gibson, John, 2021. "Measuring macro- and micronutrient consumption in multi-purpose surveys: Evidence from a survey experiment in Tanzania," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    13. Barnett, William A. & Erwin Diewert, W. & Zellner, Arnold, 2011. "Introduction to measurement with theory," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(1), pages 1-5, March.
    14. Jael, Paul, 2015. "Socialist Calculation and Market Socialism," MPRA Paper 64255, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Bai, Yan & Costlow, Leah & Ebel, Alissa & Laves, Sarah & Ueda, Yurika & Volin, Natalie & Zamek, Maya & Herforth, Anna & Masters, William A., 2021. "Review: Retail consumer price data reveal gaps and opportunities to monitor food systems for nutrition," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    16. Antonio Ciccone & Marek Jarociński, 2010. "Determinants of Economic Growth: Will Data Tell?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 222-246, October.
    17. David O. Argente & Chang-Tai Hsieh & Munseob Lee, 2020. "Measuring the Cost of Living in Mexico and the US," NBER Working Papers 27806, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Yin‐Wong Cheung & Eiji Fujii, 2014. "Exchange Rate Misalignment Estimates—Sources Of Differences," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 91-121, March.
    19. He, Yong, 2018. "Can the visible and invisible hands coexist in land pricing?," MPRA Paper 88770, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Deng, Kent & O'Brien, Patrick, 2021. "The Kuznetsian paradigm for the study of modern economic history and the Great Divergence with appendices of literature review and statistical data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108563, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Basic needs; essentials; subsystems; decommodification; planning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:new:wpaper:1814. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Setterfield (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/denewus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.