The business accounting matrix: a proposal with an application

Abstract

National accounting matrices (NAM) perfectly describe the economic structure of a national economy, summarising the whole process of generation of primary income and its distribution among the different institutional sectors of the economy. It is not just a way to represent the main economic statistics of an economy but it also serves as the basis for most macroeconomic modelling efforts. The business accounting matrix (BAM) presents the most relevant information for the firm in a similar way, adapted to the descriptive potential of financial accounting, what we believe can be useful both for economic modellers and for decision makers at the firm level. Our intention is not to convince business administrators to change their accounting paradigm but to help analysts and researchers to obtain a comprehensive description of the activity of a firm aligned to well recognised economic statistical standards.