In recent years the definition of an economic transfer--a payment to an
individual or institution that does not arise out of current productive
activity--has been subject to even wider interpretation. This volume
addresses that trend and introduces new methods of measuring transfers
in the American economy.
Social security, private pension benefits, housing, and health care are
traditional kinds of transfers. Accurate measurements of the degree and
effect of these and of other, newly interpreted transfers are vital to
economic policy making. Though this volume is not directly concerned
with policy-making issues, it does impinge on many areas of current
public concern; methods of transfer valuation, for example, may affect
how we view the status of the aged.
Researchers, policy analysts, and those who compile statistics on which
social programs are based on will value the diverse approaches of these
ten papers and their accompanying comments. Taken together the essays
give great insight into the complexities of defining transfers and
provide a wealth of new analytic methods. They were developed from
material presented at the Income and Wealth Conference on Social
Accounting for Transfers held at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1982.