Problems of measurement and analysis in the national accounts under rapidly growing globalization

Important problems of measurement and analysis in the national accounts have emerged in recent years due to rapidly growing globalisation of production, expanding trade in services, performance of international transactions and flow of information over the internet. The paper addresses the measurement problems in connection with: Joint international production, outsourcing across borders, growing flows of services and transactions that are not covered by existing surveys and administrational data, complicated transactions in connection with for example mergers and swaps of stocks. The problems of analysis of growth and productivity under growing globalisation of production are also presented. International recommendations for coverage and methods of measurement currently do not give satisfactory solutions to these problems. The experience with these difficulties in Israel have resulted in the development of possible solutions, which include use of new sources and measurement methods, construction of decision trees for registration of certain transactions, and linkage to statistical frameworks abroad.