Sumitra Shah wrote:   
"Perhaps bringing the value of household production   
in the national accounts (from the satellite accounts) will be a   
starting point in devising national policies for, say, childcare and   
eldercare. A reasonably accurate measure of household production can be   
used to make a claim for a more generous expenditures on both, if women   
choose to work in the marketplace."  
  
  
It seems to me that the care of children is (and should be) the   
responsibility of their parents.  And the care of the elderly is (and   
should be) the responsibility of adults to prepare for during their   
working age (or perhaps their children in some kind of reciprocity for   
their having been cared for in their growing-up years).  Why is there a   
need for "devising national policies" for such cares, let alone making   
"a claim for a more generous expenditures on both"?  Is any of these   
cares a "public good"?  
  
Second, given the differences in individual (subjective) valuations of   
goods and services produced or consumed, whom would the computed values   
of home production be expected to satisfy?  I thought economists long   
learned to avoid engaging in interpersonal comparisons of worth, values,   
or utilities.  
  
James Ahiakpor