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From:
[log in to unmask] (Benjamin H. Mitra-Kahn)
Date:
Wed Mar 26 12:55:33 2008
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Hi John,

For the US, you will find that what constituted GNP changed from the 1920's
and became the national income estimates of Kuznets in 1941 (see Kuznets;
S., 1941, National Income and Its Composition 1919-1938, Vol. 1, New York,
NY: National Bureau of Economic Research) which details how Kuznets and the
NBER set up the national accounts for the US.

This was then superseded by Keynes, Meade and Stone's framework as outlined
in the UK white paper of 1941 (and I think GDP is named explicitly there, if
memory serves). This eventually became the UN standard national accounting
framework.

For the exact timing of the terms 'Gross National Product' and 'Gross
Domestic Product' I do not have a reference for, but 'national income' is
first mentioned as a term in William Petty's 1676 *Political Arithmetic*(see
http://webspace.newschool.edu/~kahnb081/MitraKahn-NI05.pdf presented at HES
conference 2007 for references and early national accounting) and I think
Gregory King used the term 'net national product' as he did distinguish
between the net and gross, and had certain terms he used for them. A good
history of national accounting would be: Studenski, P., 1958, *The income of
Nations: Theory, Measurement, and analysis: Past
and Present: A study in Applied Economics and Statistics*, New York, NY:
York
University Press, but beware of some whiggish tendencies in places.

Not sure about the 1992 change in the US, so will leave that for someone
else to handle.

Best

Benjamin Mitra-Kahn


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