National Accounts for a Global Economy: The Case of Ireland

Globalization is affecting how economic activity is reflected in the national accounts. Intellectual property, which is now part of the capital stock, interacts with the choice of global firms as to their legal structure, producing unexpected national accounting outcomes for individual countries. This is but one manifestation of the challenges that a global economy presents for national accounting. Using the example of Ireland, consideration is given to the data needed to meet the needs of users of national accounts. In particular, more information is required to separately identify all the activity of multinational enterprises and domestically owned firms. This paper suggests a set of satellite accounts for Ireland that would show how changes in the economy affect the economic welfare of Irish residents.