Valuation of Volunteer Work in Satellite Account of Non-Profit Institutions

Abstract

Volunteer work constitutes an important input into the activities of non-profit institutions. However, in the core system of national accounts, volunteering falls outside the production boundary even if it leads to the production of services. By doing so, national accounts inevitably underestimates the contribution of non-profit institutions to the well-being. This shortcoming is overcome by the Satellite Account of Non-profit Institutions complementing and extending the concept of national accounts chiefly by incorporation of the value of volunteering and by full coverage of non-profit institutions classified in a number of economic sectors. This paper is an attempt to address the key issue that is the way of volunteer work´s valuation for analytical purposes. We will discuss different approaches to the valuation and their impact on key macroeconomic aggregates.

Keywords: non-profit institutions, volunteer work, valuation

JEL Classification: E23, E24, J30