The origins of national accounting can be traced back to the 17th century. However, modern national accounts have largely developed since the late 1940s, although some initial forays commenced a couple of decades earlier. The three most important standards for the economic accounts are those for...

Military expenditure is difficult to define. Major issues are functional versus institutional approaches to defense, indirect and intangible costs and benefits and current versus comprehensive accounting. Authoritative institutions have adopted standard definitions but national governments are...

This chapter investigates recent advances in our understanding of the global distribution of income, and produces the first estimates of global inequality that take into account data on the incomes of the top one percent within countries. We discuss conceptual and methodological issues –...