ABSTRACT
Before agreement can be reached concerning the data to be presented in the international accounts and their form of presentation, there must be agreement concerning the purposes they are to serve. This problem, as we have seen, did not face the pioneers in this field of economics and statistics. Their studies were made, for the most part, as special occasions demanded. Starting as they did with some particular question in mind, they saw the purposes of their work clearly defined at the beginning and shaped their investigations and reports of results to agree with this purpose.
