Duncan
------
I lean, because of my interest in money and short-term macroeconomic
stability, to current market prices for many applications, since those
prices are what people actually see and the money incomes derived from
them are what they actually pursue. (A kind of materialism, if you will.)
But there are other interesting questions about long-term regularities of
the structure of production which may be more clearly understood in other
accounting schemes. (I take the work of Anou, Paul C. and Allin C., and
others showing the structural similarity of market prices to embodied
labor coefficients as being a clue in this direction.)
Paul C
------
I would agree with the use of national accounts for these purposes.
I think the errors that arise from using them vis a vis i/o tables
are small. The fact that national accounts are available at much
more frequent intervals also makes them superior for following trends.
Paul Cockshott
wpc@cs.strath.ac.uk
http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/CS/Biog/wpc/index.html