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A Current Cost Accounting Measure of Britain's Stock of Equipment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

A.D. Smith
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Extract

Reliable measures of the gross replacement cost of fixed assets are needed for a variety of reasons. It is generally accepted that this is the valuation concept which is most appropriate for assessing the output capacity of capital and for analysing developments over time in output, labour force and capital stock relationships. The gross replacement cost of fixed assets is also the benchmark for deriving measures of net capital stock which, taken in conjunction with other capital elements and profit data, yield rates of return to capital. Furthermore it is the concept which constitutes the fundamental ingredient in the quantification of the depreciation allowances that are used in national accounts.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 120 , May 1987 , pp. 42 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

Notes

(1) Preparation of this paper has benefited greatly from the co-operation and data provided by Mr C.G.E. Bryant of the CSO. The author also wishes to acknowledge the help and advice given by colleagues at the National Institute, Dr Sushil Wadhwani, Professor Tibor Barna, respondents to the industrial survey, officials at Datastream and the staff at the London Business Library. Financial assistance for the research was provided by the Economic and Social Research Council, HM Treasury and the Bank of England.

(2) Tom Griffin, ‘The stock of fixed assets in the United Kingdom: how to make the best use of the statistics’, Economic Trends, October 1976, p.132.

(3) These are presented in CSO, United Kingdom National Accounts and their compilation described in CSO, United Kingdom National Accounts: Sources and Methods, 1985, pp.1 00 et seq. This series has evolved from the pioneering work of P. Redfern, ‘Net investment in fixed assets in the United Kingdom, 1938-1953’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, series A, 1955.

(4) The results of this exercise are presented in A. D. Smith, ‘The feasibility of fire insurance measures of capital stock’, National Institute Discussion Paper, no. 116, June 1986.

(5) T. Barna, ‘The replacement cost of fixed assets in British manufacturing industry in 1955’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, series A, 1957; and G. Dean, ‘The stock of fixed capital in the United Kingdom in 1961’ Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, series A, 1964.

(6) J. Hibbert, T.J. Griffin and R. L. Walker, ‘Development of estimates of the stock of fixed capital in the United Kingdom’, The Review of Income and Wealth, June 1977, p.118.

(7) Inflation Accounting: Report of the Inflation Accounting Committee, Cmnd 6225, HMSO 1975.

(8) The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, ‘Current cost accounting’, Statement of Standard Accounting Practice, no.16 (SSAP 16). See also ‘Current cost accounting’, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, September 1982.

(9) SSAP 16, p.3.

(10) Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, ‘Guidance notes on SSAP 16’, Accounting Standards, 1984/5, p.332.

(11) Business Statistics Office, ‘Price index numbers for current cost accounting’, Business Monitor, MO18, Summary volume 1974-82, HMSO 1983. These price indices are updated in the Business Monitor, series MM17.

(12) ‘Guidance notes on SSAP 16’, op. cit., pp.335-6.

(13) ‘Performance of large companies’, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, September 1986, p.390.

(14) Sushil Wadhwani and Martin Wait, ‘The UK capital stock—new estimates of premature scrapping’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol.2, no.3, Autumn 1986.

(15) These latter figures are not those published in the United Kingdom National Accounts but were kindly supplied directly by the CSO. The relevant published data are available for 1983 only at 1980 prices—and in the case of service activities, especially, only at a very summary level—whereas for comparison with the CCA estimates in table 1 they are required at current (i.e. 1983) prices. On average the CCA estimates are centred around September 1983 at prices then prevailing. The CSO PIM-based figures relate to end-1983 at end-1983 prices. The contribution of this minor inconsistency to the PIM-CCA differential is minimal.

(16) Assets in SIC activity 84, renting of moveables, are also excluded from the PIM estimates but in this case are not included, either, in CCA accounts.

(17) The large margin by which the CCA estimate exceeds the PIM figure in the case of water supply is due, no doubt, to the inclusion in the former but not the latter of assets associated with sewage activities.

(18) Smith, op. cit.

(19) See Derek Blades, ‘Service lives of fixed assets’, OECD, Economics and Statistics Department Working Paper no.4, 1983; and Thierry Paccoud, ‘Stock of fixed assets in industry in the Community member states: towards greater comparability’, Eurostat Studies of National Accounts, no.2, 1983.

(20) Dean, op. cit.

(21) Blades, op. cit., p.16.

(22) CSO, National Income and Expenditure, 1982, p.121.

(23) CSO, Sources and Methods, 1985, p.201; and National Income and Expenditure, 1983, p.114.

(24) Blades (op. cit., p.12) estimated 33 years, and Paccoud (op. cit., p.46) quotes 31 years.

(25) CSO, Sources and Methods 1985, p.201.

(26) Paccoud, op. cit., p.46; Blades, op. cit., p.12. The Paccoud lives relate to plant and machinery in energy, manufacturing and construction; Blades' to plant and machinery in manufacturing. Coverage of vehicles would tend to lower the estimates.

(27) Because of the significance of self-employment in the commercial services, this 11 per cent somewhat overstates actual coverage of the labour force. However, to set it in some form of perspective it is comparable to the 13 per cent employment coverage achieved by Barna in his original, fire insurance-based, direct estimates of capital stock in manufacturing (‘The replacement cost of fixed assets in British manufacturing industry in 1955’, op. cit.).

(28) Certain differences in the labour forces as shown for these activities, on the one hand, by the organisation's annual reports and accounts and, on the other, by official statistical sources, are essentially attributable to differences in the periods to which they relate.