NA/48 The history of national accounting

Bos, Frits (1992).At present, the national accounts in most countries are compiled on the basis of concepts and classifications recommended in the 1968-United Nations guidelines. In this paper, we trace the historical roots of these guidelines (e.g. the work by King, Petty, Kuznets, Keynes, Leontief, Frisch, Tinbergen and Stone), compare the subsequent guidelines and discuss also alternative accounting systems like extended accounts and SAMs.