macro economic policies by central governments, on the one hand, and the disparate need to ensure rapid economic recovery in Western Europe, on the other. Commonly held also was the notion that economic development must be consciously promoted to ensure the wider acceptance of democracy as a sound political institution. A new subject, "economic development," was introduced to the curriculum in many American universities.
Conceptual Tool Box for Database Creation
Basic Philosophical Principles
The ASHSTAT, as envisioned in the COE Proiect, presents a systematic set of "statistical facts," and, as such, will form an important-(indispensable) basis for simple descriptive analysis of the loci of national economies. Underlying the development of social accounting has been the concept of the nation state as an essential unit of observation. Technically speaking, the basic unit of observation can be much narrower or even wider, as the case may be. Nonetheless, the notion of a nation has served as the most important and essential foundation on which macro economic accounting has been built upon.
Another crucial, basic methodological position that has been adopted throughout by national-income accounting is that the economic evaluation of any activities shall be made on a market basis. Any activities which are not directly under the jurisdiction of the market shall therefore be "imputed" (assessed artificially) by referring to some kind of shadow prices which are supposed to approximate the valuation by market forces (if the latter had been in operation for the activity in question). Illustrative examples of such imputation may be taken from current practices, for example, in the estimate of the economic services rendered by private residential housing or of the value of agricultural products which are set aside for self-consumption.
Units of Observation
In order to ensure easy access to and convenient use of the database, the COE Project proposes that units of observations be standardised as much as possible. For example, the adoption of the western calendar, metric measures, and
