THIS PAPER HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM CIRCULATION TEMPORARILY. PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. This paper is interested in the weight of essential goods and services in economic activity. The first measure is concerned with the sphere of production, which makes use of World Input-Output Tables to construct net-product subsystems so as to estimate the total (direct and indirect) share of essentials in aggregate product. The second measure approaches the same question from the sphere of consumption by relying on OECD data on household final consumption expenditures. The results lie roughly in the interval of 45-70% and 50-75% in the spheres of production and consumption, respectively, where the lower and upper bounds are given by essentials in the narrow and broad sense, respectively. Interesting patterns are captured by comparing different groups of countries. Moreover, evidence is found for the aggregate-level counterpart of Engel’s Law. The results have important implications when read in the context of the literature on the welfare state, de(commodification), universal basic income, and the need to adjust consumption and production in response to the looming ecological crisis.

中文翻译：

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经济活动中要素的权重

此纸已暂时停止流通。请联系作者以获取更多信息。本文关注的是基本商品和服务在经济活动中的权重。第一个度量与生产领域有关，它利用世界投入产出表构建净产品子系统，以估计总产品中必需品的总（直接和间接）份额。第二个措施通过依赖经合组织关于家庭最终消费支出的数据从消费领域解决了同样的问题。在生产和消费领域，结果大致分别位于 45-70% 和 50-75% 的区间，其中下限和上限分别由狭义和广义的要素给出。通过比较不同的国家组来捕捉有趣的模式。此外，还找到了恩格尔定律在聚合层面对应的证据。在阅读有关福利国家、去商品化、普遍基本收入以及调整消费和生产以应对迫在眉睫的生态危机的必要性方面的文献时，这些结果具有重要意义。