Economic Transfers in the United States

In recent years the definition of an economic transfera payment to an individual or institution that does not arise out of current productive activityhas been subject to even wider interpretation. This volume addresses that trend and introduces new methods of measuring transfers in the American economy. Social security, private pension benefits, housing, and health care are traditional kinds of transfers. Accurate measurements of the degree and effect of these and of other, newly interpreted transfers are vital to economic policy making. Though this volume is not directly concerned with policy-making issues, it does impinge on many areas of current public concern; methods of transfer valuation, for example, may affect how we view the status of the aged. Researchers, policy analysts, and those who compile statistics on which social programs are based on will value the diverse approaches of these ten papers and their accompanying comments. Taken together the essays give great insight into the complexities of defining transfers and provide a wealth of new analytic methods. They were developed from material presented at the Income and Wealth Conference on Social Accounting for Transfers held at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1982.

Marilyn Moon is senior research associate at the Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.