Appendix A
The Nation's Economic Accounts
CONTENTS
Page
The Nation's economic accounts
125
Statistical tables relating to the Nation's economic accounts:
A-l. The Nation's economic accounts, calendar years 1951-52.
128
A-2. Consumer account, calendar years 1951-52
129
A-3. Business account, calendar years 1951-52.
130
A-4. International account, calendar years 1951-52
130
A-5. Government account (Federal, State, and local), calendar
years 1951-52
131
A-6. Reconciliation of Federal Government expenditures on
income and product account with consolidated cash
statement and administrative budget, calendar years
1951-52
132
A-7. Reconciliation of Federal Government receipts on income
and product account with consolidated cash statement
and administrative budget, calendar years 1951-52. ...
133
A-8. Federal cash payments to the public by type of recipient
and transaction, calendar years 1951-52
134
209722—52
9
123
The Nation's Economic Accounts
The Nation's economic accounts presented in tables A-l to A-5 are de-
signed to show the major economic developments of the last year and a half,
and to throw light on the process of change and adjustment within the
economy. However, the accounts are more nearly like snapshots taken at
intervals than like a moving picture which shows the process of change. The
causal elements must be inferred from a succession of static pictures.
It is in the nature of the accounting concepts used that, for the economy
as a whole, total income received and total output (or expenditure) are
always equal: the sum of the components of income, such as rents, wages,
profits, and interest, must equal the value of the output of goods and serv-
ices. Thus, in the Nation's economic accounts, receipts and expenditures
add to the same total, which is the gross national output or expenditure.
It follows that if the receipts of any one sector of the economy exceed the
expenditures of that sector, this will be balanced by an excess of expendi-
ture over receipts in another sector. This balance is s