As can be seen from Figure 3, path 1, represented by the arc above, links account 1 to
account 12 through account 5, while path 2 makes the same link, but in this case directly. The
total influence of the first is significantly lower than that of the second, whilst the high values
of the path multipliers show that the most important influences are those of adjacent feedback
circuits, a feature that is in keeping with what was noted in relation to the amounts of the
additional extragroup and intergroup influences.
A general decrease can be noted here in all the influences from 1995 to 2000, sometimes
with a slight increase in 2000. Positive values can also be noted.
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The SAM approach has shown itself to be a practical working instrument of considerable
value as an accounting framework that includes all non-financial transactions within the
economy and thereby provides a quantitative basis for analysis.
It was possible to see that Portuguese aggregate household income amounted to more than
half of the total aggregate income of Portugal and that the relative share of the former in the
latter decreased from 1995 to 2000, with the average growth rates in that period being lower
for household current and capital income than for the total.
Changes in social benefits and transfers, non-life insurance claims and miscellaneous
current transfers (current incomes), received by households, mostly affected aggregate
demand through final consumption and the production value in direct and global terms.
Almost the same effect was produced by changes in investment grants and (other) capital
transfers (capital incomes), but this time through gross capital formation. In the case of such
impacts, additional extragroup effects predominated, meaning that most of the repercussions
of those changes do not return to the account where they were originally felt, and that the
additional intergroup effects represent those repercussions that do return (additional
intragroup effects were not felt). This fact was confirmed by the high values of the calculated
path multipliers for the impact of a unitary change in households’ current receipts (account 1)
on the products account (12).
In all the experiments carried out with the built model, the effects had the same
mathematical sign as the initial change and their amounts were, generally speaking, less
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