ABSTRACT

For the U.K., Holloway, Short and Tamplin (2002) have undertaken a detailed study of household satellite account using the output approach. For INSTRAW, the authors of this paper collaborated with Meena Acharya in work designed to explore the problems and feasibility of output based measures in both developed and developing countries in order to advance the case for output based measures. In that project estimates were developed for Nepal, Finland and Canada. This paper identifies and discusses four lessons arising from existing research on outputoriented non-market production valuation. First, output measures are possible. Second, time-use studies can be used to generate output measurements. Third, numerous definitional and measurement issues remain to be solved. Fourth, accurate measurement is crucial to understand differential productivity between the market and non-market sectors. Portions of this chapter draw heavily from our previous conference paper (Harvey and Mukhopadhyay, 1996). 6.2 The Input Approach to the Valuation of Household Production Input approaches have traditionally focused on labor inputs to the production process, deriving the value of household output as the value of labor that goes into

its production. [See, for example, Adler and Hawrylyshyn (1978), Murphy (1978, 1982), Jackson (1991).] This approach fails to account for household inputs other than labor. Output emanates from a combination of input resources namely, land, labor, capital and entrepreneurial ability. To restrict the value of household production only to the embodied labor fails to portray accurately either the process or the value of household production. Additionally, the input approach fails to account for joint production in the household emanating from the simultaneous activities undertaken by individuals engaged in household production.