Approaches To Regional Economic Accounting In Canada

In the introduction of the paper, Economic Accounts are defined as a set of statistics useful in economic analysis and region is defined as a province. The paper is divided into four sections the first of which contains a brief historical outline of the development of demands for provincial economic accounts and the Dominion Bureau of Statistics' response to these needs. Apart from a description of the more well‐known conceptual difficulties, some of the fundamental problems of the usefulness and applicability of a national accounting framework to the regional scene are discussed. The resource problems of constructing analytically meaningful and reliable as well as spatially reconcilable regional accounts are described. Section II outlines the impact of present policies and problems on the development of regional statistics. It describes the reasons for the Bureau's desire to strengthen its data base in regional terms and the decision to await possible construction of regional accounts till the regional data base has been fleshed out in a more systematic manner. With the development of the latter, the ability, advantages and disadvantages of the provinces undertaking their own estimates must also be more fully explored. The third part of the paper deals with an over‐view of work in Canada on provincial accounts carried out by organizations other than the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Section IV gives a very summary description of the data gaps which exist in presently available regional statistics.