In recent years the definition of an economic transfer—a payment to an individual or institution that does not arise out of current productive activity—has been subject to even wider interpretation. This volume addresses that trend and introduces new methods of measuring transfers in the American economy. Social security, private pension benefits, housing, and health care are traditional kinds of transfers. Accurate measurements of the degree and effect of these and of other, newly interpreted transfers are vital to economic policy making. Though this volume is not directly concerned with policy-making issues, it does impinge on many areas of current public concern; methods of transfer valuation, for example, may affect how we view the status of the aged. Researchers, policy analysts, and those who compile statistics on which social programs are based on will value the diverse approaches of these ten papers and their accompanying comments. Taken together the essays give great insight into the complexities of defining transfers and provide a wealth of new analytic methods. They were developed from material presented at the Income and Wealth Conference on Social Accounting for Transfers held at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1982.

Between 1951 and 1962 nearly ten billion dollars in long-term capital (both direct investment and purchase of securities) flowed into Canada. This massive amount represented one third of all long-term capital moving among industrial nations. Its transfer marked the first time since before World War I that the world witnessed such a large-scale international movement of capital motivated primarily by a prospect of higher rates of return. In Capital Transfers and Economic Policy the authors test the theory of the causes and effects of international capital movements against the evidence drawn from Canada's experience. They explore Canada's adjustment to capital flows and show how the operation of her economic policy is affected by the sensitivity of capital flows to the country's interest rates and foreign-exchange rate. Their brilliant analysis is particularly valuable in light of current trends in capital flows among industrial nations and the June 1970 return of the Canadian dollar to a flexible exchange rate, which put the economy in a working situation similar to that of the fifties.

The Balance of Payments Textbook, like the Balance of Payments Compilation Guide, is a companion document to the fifth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual. The Textbook provides illustrative examples and applications of concepts, definitions, classifications, and conventions contained in the Manual and affords compilers with opportunities for enhancing their understanding of the relevant parts of the Manual. The Textbook is one of the main reference materials for training courses in balance of payments methodology.

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the larger economic changes of the past decade, including the growth in economic inequality and the stagnation of productivity. Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment and discuss how an economy rich in intangibles is fundamentally different from one based on tangibles. Capitalism without Capital concludes by outlining how managers, investors, and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their businesses, portfolios, and economies.

The separate identification of current and capital transfers was introduced for the first time in the fifth edition of the Fund’s Balance of Payments Manual (Manual), thus harmonizing with the treatment of transfers in the 1993 System of National Accounts (1993 SNA). Capital transfers are now recorded in the capital account component of the balance of payments and include debt forgiveness, migrants’ transfers, and other transfers, of which investment grants is a significant category. This paper presents the criteria for defining capital transfers and provides sources and methods of compilation, and examples of treatment, as illustrated in the Fund’s Balance of Payments Compilation Guide and Balance of Payments Textbook.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs aim to reduce poverty by making welfare programs conditional upon the receivers' actions. That is, the government only transfers the money to persons who meet certain criteria. These criteria may include enrolling children into public schools, getting regular check-ups at the doctor's office, receiving vaccinations, or the like. They have been hailed as a way of reducing inequality and helping households break out of a vicious cycle whereby poverty is transmitted from one generation to another. Do these and other claims make sense? Are they supported by the available empirical evidence? This volume seeks to answer these and other related questions. Specifically, it lays out a conceptual framework for thinking about the economic rationale for CCTs; it reviews the very rich evidence that has accumulated on CCTs; it discusses how the conceptual framework and the evidence on impacts should inform the design of CCT programs in practice; and it discusses how CCTs fit in the context of broader social policies. The authors show that there is considerable evidence that CCTs have improved the lives of poor people and argue that conditional cash transfers have been an effective way of redistributing income to the poor. They also recognize that even the best-designed and managed CCT cannot fulfill all of the needs of a comprehensive social protection system. They therefore need to be complemented with other interventions, such as workfare or employment programs, and social pensions.