Introduction

There are many different productivity measures for different purposes and policy makers and other users are not always aware of the conceptual and empirical reasons for differences between them. Productivity is a key indicator in the assessment of economic performance and a growing number of statistical offi ces in the OECD area have recently become engaged in the measurement of productivity. This work is raising many new questions for measurement, including the possible approaches to developing measures of aggregate productivity performance, as well as issues related to productivity measurement in specifi c sectors of the economy. Some of these measurement issues, especially those related to the measure of capital services, have been taking into account in the current process of revision of the System of National Accounts (SNA).