tailieunhanh - ACCOUNTING FOR RENEWABLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

An additional issue arises because of payments such as future taxes and royalties. In acquiring the above property, the new owner must, for ex- ample, pay a 10 percent overriding royalty to the landowner. Such payments should be included in the value of the resource even though they do not accrue to the seller of the property. In the example shown in Box 3–1, future royalties and taxes are assumed to have a present value of $ million. These payments introduce a major new complication because taxes and royalties depend on future production. Not only are they un- certain, but they also cannot be easily estimated from market or transaction data. One approach is. | 26 SURVEy GF CURRENT BUSINESS March 2000 Accounting for Renewable and Environmental Resources LAST SUMMER a blue ribbon panel of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council completed a congressionally mandated review of the work that the Bureau of Economic Analysis BEA had published on integrated economic and environmental accounts. The panel s Snal report commended BEA for its initial work in producing a set of sound and objective prototype accounts. The November 1999 issue of the Survey OF Current Business contained an article by William D. Nordhaus the Chair of the Panel that presented an overview of the major issues and findings and a reprint of chapter 5 Overall Appraisal of Environmental Accounting in the United States. Chapter 3 Accounting for Subsoil Mineral Resources was reprinted in the February2000issue chapter 4 Accounting for Renewable and Environmental Resources is reprinted below. This article is reprinted with permission from Nature s Numbers Expanding the National Economic Accounts to Include the Environment. Copyright of the National Academy Press Washington DC. This is a report of the National Research Council prepared by the Panel on integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting and edited by William D. Nordhaus and Edward C. Kokkenlenberg. The previous chapter reviewed issues involved in extending the national accounts to include subsoil assets. This chapter focuses on two other aspects of environmental accounting renewable and environmental resources. BEA has proposed covering these two categories of resources in future work on integrated accounting. As discussed in Chapter 1 Phase II of that work would focus on different classes of land . agriculture forest and recreation land on timber on fisheries and on agricultural assets such as grain stocks and livestock. Phase III would address environmental resources including for example air uncultivated biological resources and water. The general principles set forth in Chapter