This paper makes three points regarding the proper measurement of the output of financial intermediaries. Two of them concern the measurement of nominal financial output, especially banking output. First, we show that, to impute the nominal value of implicitly priced financial output, it is necessary to adjust each reference rate of interest (also called “the user cost of funds”) for the risk inherent in that corresponding financial transaction. Otherwise, nominal financial output will be overstated, and the bias can be large (about 25 percent). Second, we argue that, according to finance theory, the required risk correction can be implemented practically at the level of industries (e.g., the banking sector as a whole). The third point concerns the construction of a financial services price index, and thus applies to the measurement of real output. We argue that the reference rates or the related rate spreads, which are used to impute the nominal output of financial institutions, are not the right implicit price deflators for deriving the real output of financial institutions
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
14614.
Length: Date of creation: Dec 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14614
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Mortgages G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure
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