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Dear Dr. Ormazabel, 
 
As I recall the history of the two accounting systems (the Kuznetsian and 
the 'Keynesian') they focused on different things. Kuznets was interested 
almost exclusively in consumption and the size distribution of income. That 
he got involved with GNP (today it would have been GDP), he considered it a 
wartime necessary evil. Meade & Stone came to national accounting as part 
of a 1940ff war-time assignment where Keynes wanted them to locate all 
available production capacity. The initial reports in both cases were 
miracles of fast production. The Meade-Stone NATIONAL INCOME & EXPENDITURE 
was published by Oxford in 1944, but it was available in part for 
discussion  well into 1941.  Milton Gilbert who headed the American office 
(Department of Commerce) started rebuilding the Kuznets system also long 
before 1944. In 1942 Gilbert published two expository articles in the 
SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS (they drew on a paper he gave at the AEA 
December 1941 meetings) in which he laid out his plans for the transition. 
Gilbert, a Kuznets student, was insofar as I am aware taken by surprise 
when Simon attacked Gilbert's innovations (as seen in the SURVEY OF CURRENT 
BUSINESS special issue dated 1947) in Simon's review of it as published in 
1948 in the REVIEW OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS.   
 
In particular Kuznets had great reservations about using T-accounts. One 
has really to read his 1948 review to grasp how fundamental his criticisms 
were. I don't think that he ever changed his mind. Moreover, as you 
probably know Simon was critical of Keynes methods in the General Theory. 
 
My sources for the above were mentioned in the earlier HES message. But I 
should add one thing. All three of the men (Kuznets, Meade, & Stone) 
recounted the stories of their approach to the topic and their differences 
over several dinners I had with them (the discussions with Simon started in 
1955 and with Meade and Stone in 1978). I know that Simon highly approved 
of the article POLITICAL PURPOSE AND THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS not only because 
he told me so, but because his wife, Edith, actually wrote me to that 
effect.   
 
Mark Perlman 
 
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