conceptual discrepancies in industry classifications of different ages and regions, that its three-digit version be utilised insofar as possible in collecting and compiling the original statistical figures.
The second category mentioned above, (b), is concerned with the sources and disposition of income, the accumulation and financing of capital, and balance sheets. In reference to this category, economic institutions are classified into five groups, namely, non-financial corporate and quasi-corporate enterprises, financial institutions, general government, private non-profit institutions serving households, and households. (Note that the last item includes non-financial private unincorporated enterprises.)(3)
These two classification schemes serve as the most essential frame of reference in compiling the final outcome of the ASHSTAT in as standardised a manner as practicable.
In addition, there are two other, equally (if not more) important systems of classification for the project, i.e. those of commodities and of occupations. Goods and services, the outcomes of activities of the economic actors, are to be classified with due respect being paid to The Standard International Trade Classification (United Nations, 1961). It is especially important that this standard be adhered to in constructing a meaningful international, trade-statistics database. On the other hand, International Standard Classification of Occupations serves as a bench mark in identifying and analysing the structures of national labour forces and their transformations over time.
The outcomes of the above estimating procedures will be utilised, together with some additional estimating work, to arrive at the statistics of GDE (Table 3).
Historical Digression
The intellectual origin of the effort to estimate national income goes back even earlier than the origin of modern economics (that is, to Sir William Petty (1623-87); see Studenski 1961, part One, 1). (4) But most recent spread of its uses and applications is ascribable to the influence of a number of modern economists, who advocated the importance of social accounting in the 1940s and on
