Capital stock
The capital stock indicates the annual average gross fixed assets of an economy . In addition to the employed, it plays an essential role as a production factor. The capital stock is comparable to the average capital tied up.
According to the definition of the Federal Statistical Office , the capital stock or fixed assets include all assets produced that are used repeatedly or permanently in production for more than a year.
The capital stock is determined as net fixed assets using the accumulation method . One starts with the capital stock of a certain starting point in time and adds up the subsequent fixed investments and subtracts the depreciation . In this way you can update the capital stock over time. The problem is the initial capital stock, which is generally not known. Here you have to make do with estimates. Over time, however, the size of the initial capital stock no longer has any influence on the current size of the capital stock. The possible estimation error at the beginning weakens more and more in its effect over time. This “forgetting” (cf. ergodic hypothesis ) of the initial value depends on which service life is assumed for the individual assets, the shorter the service life, the faster one can “forget” the initial value of the capital stock.
If the gross fixed assets are taken as a basis for the capital stock, the assets are not depreciated, they are eliminated from fixed assets as a whole at the end of their life.
theory
Whether the capital can be added to a one-dimensional quantity (electric locomotives are added to thumbtacks) is theoretically controversial and the subject of the so-called capital controversy .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ "The chain index for the price-adjusted gross fixed assets serves as an indicator for the development of the capital stock." (Definition and explanations by the Federal Statistical Office)