The Weight of Essentials in Economic Activity

Baki Guney Isikara ()
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Baki Guney Isikara: Department of Economics, New School for Social Research

No 1814, Working Papers from New School for Social Research, Department of Economics

Abstract: THIS PAPER HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM CIRCULATION TEMPORARILY. PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. This paper is interested in the weight of essential goods and services in economic activity. The first measure is concerned with the sphere of production, which makes use of World Input-Output Tables to construct net-product subsystems so as to estimate the total (direct and indirect) share of essentials in aggregate product. The second measure approaches the same question from the sphere of consumption by relying on OECD data on household final consumption expenditures. The results lie roughly in the interval of 45-70% and 50-75% in the spheres of production and consumption, respectively, where the lower and upper bounds are given by essentials in the narrow and broad sense, respectively. Interesting patterns are captured by comparing different groups of countries. Moreover, evidence is found for the aggregate-level counterpart of Engel’s Law. The results have important implications when read in the context of the literature on the welfare state, de(commodification), universal basic income, and the need to adjust consumption and production in response to the looming ecological crisis.

Keywords: Basic needs; essentials; subsystems; decommodification; planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme
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http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/econ/2018/NSSR_WP_142018.pdf First version, 2018 (application/pdf)

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