ABSTRACT
The concept o f national incom e accounting m ust be distinguished from that o f national income. K uznets’ (1934) study of the U nited States is usually credited with having produced some of the earliest estim ates o f national income. His work developed into the detailed analysis produced in 1941 (Kuznets, 1941), describing national incom e both by type and by sector of
origin. But it would be a pity ignore his precursors. In the 17th century Petty (1664) and King (1696) presented estim ates o f E ngland’s national incom e. W hile their work, described by Stone (1984), is unlikely to be as accurate as m ore recent estim ates, we should note tha t they and their successors provided the raw m aterial which has been used to produce national incom e estim ates for the U nited K ingdom for the period 1688-1959 by D eane and Cole (1962).
