Account for depreciation of natural capital

摘要

For the past year, academics and policymakers have been discussing Thomas Piketty's 2013 economics best-seller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century1. It documents the considerable rise over the past 40 years in national wealth relative to national income in eight of the richest economies -the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada and Australia. The national wealth of each of these countries increased from 2-3 times national income in 1970 to 4-6 times income in 2010. Piketty relies on standard income conventions as prescribed in the United Nations national accounts. He includes natural resources such as fossil fuels, minerals and forests in his estimate of a country's capital. But his measures of national income and savings adjust only for depreciation of'fixed capital' - buildings, equipment and so on.