Stock de Capital en Chile (1985-2005): Metodología y Resultados

This paper presents the methodology of capital stock measurement for the Chilean economy by types of assets and different economic activities, according to the Reference Compilation 2003 of National Accounts System. Capital stocks by types of assets are estimated under the Perpetual Inventory Method (PIM), while the activity sectors approach follows to Harberger (1972) method. Specifically, integrated and consistent measurements for investment, capital stock (gross and net) and consumption of fixed capital are presented. We assume different patterns of retirement and survival and depreciation functions, following the international evidence and previous studies for the case of Chile. The findings show that the assumed average service lives of the assets are key. Also, geometric depreciation is used and then compared with the linear depreciation functions. The main results show a continuum growth of net capital stocks/PIB ratio from 1996 to 2005 up to 2.3%. The consumption of fixed capital/GDP ratio is 10.4% (assuming linear depreciation) for the period 2003-2005, below the National Accounts measure (12%)