The effect of durable goods and ICT on euro area productivity growth?

The present System of National Accounts (SNA93) treats durable consumption goods as consumption goods rather than investment although rentals for owner occupied households is imputed into GDP. We argue that households de facto treat the purchase of durable goods as investments and thus, the treatment of durables as capital assets conceptually does not differ from the present treatment of owner occupied dwellings. This is not captured by the economic analysis based on current statistical conventions. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of durable goods and ICT on euro area economic growth and productivity change; when expenditure on consumer durables is recorded as capital investment. The capitalization of consumer durables impacts both the levels and growth rates of the capital stock, productivity and GDP. Our growth accounting computations demonstrated that the capital services of durables contributed one-tenth of economic growth and one-eight of labour productivity growth in 1995-2004. ICT's impacts were larger, i.e., one-fifth of GVA growth and one-sixth of labour productivity growth. JEL Classification: E01, E21, E22, J24, O11asset, durable good, household production, ICT, productivity, technological transformation, user cost

Durable goods and their effect on household saving ratios in the euro area

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of capitalising durable goods on the Euro area household saving ratios and disposable incomes for the first time. The reason for this exercise is twofold. Firstly, it is generally accepted that individual households regard consumer durables as assets even though they are not treated as such in the System of National Accounts 1993. Secondly, the issue is related to the definition of household saving ratios. For instance, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board publishes three household saving measures. The main difference between these saving ratios is that one is derived by treating expenditure on consumer durables as investments while the other ones are compiled by considering them to be household final consumption expenditure. We find that the effect of capitalising consumer durables on EA saving ratios is moderate. The impact is lower than it is in the US. JEL Classification: E21, E22asset, disposable income, durable good, saving ratio, user cost

Lepidoptera of the Kola Peninsula, northwestern Russia¹

The annotated list of 585 species of Lepidoptera from the Kola Peninsula is the first comprehensive account from the area. It is based on results of a recent 14-years collecting as well as on the old materials collected by Finnish entomologists and on all the data published earlier. For each species, the localities are listed; position of all localities is indicated on the map; species numbers from localities and UTM squares are summarized. Eight species are new for Russia; six species collected along the White Sea coast were never recorded in Northern Fennoscandia. Eight species erroneously reported from the Kola Peninsula are excluded from the list

Boreal Olethreutini 1. (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae): New Synonymies and Holarctic Records

We examined specimens of selected boreal palaearctic and nearctic taxa of Tortricidae to ascertain whether they might be holarctic conspecifics. Our findings confirm one putative synonymy: Tia enervana (Erschoff, 1877) = Argyroploce vulgana McDunnough, 1922, support four new synonymies: Olethreutes aquilonanus (Karvonen, 1932) = O. kononenkoi Kuznetsov, 1991, O. heinrichanus (McDunnough, 1927) = O. hyperboreanus (Karvonen, 1932), O. turfosanus (Herrich-Schaffer, 1851) = O. intermistanus (Clemens, 1865), O. septentrionanus (Curtis, 1835) = O. schaefferanus (Herrich-Schiiffer, 1851) and resurrect one name from synonymy: the nearctic O. kennethanus McDunnough, 1941 is not conspecific with the palaearctic O. obsoletanus (Zetterstedt, 1840). Through synonymies and records, seven species are new for the Nearctic, and ten are considered holarctic. These results increase the percentage of holarctic Beringian tortricid species from 48 to 61

Elachista adelpha sp. n., E. coeneni titanella ssp. n, and other Elachistidae (Lepidoptera) from North Caucasus

Five species belonging to the Elachistidae are reported from North Caucasus. Three of these species have previously been known only from the mountains of Central and Southeastern Europe. New taxa: Elachista adelpha sp. n. and Elachista coeneni titanella ssp. n

New Records of Lepidoptera from the Kola Peninsula, Northwestern Russia

We report 91 species of Lepidoptera discovered from the Kola Peninsula for the first time and confirm records of 15 species from which our earlier information was based solely on the literature. Tinea svenssoni Opheim, 1965, Biselachista kebneella Traugott-Olsen & Nielsen, 1977 and Apotomis fraterculana Krogerus, 1945 are reported for the first time from Russia. The Lepidopteran fauna of the Kola Peninsula now numbers 676 species

The leaf-rollers (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae) of Western Tuva, with description of Cochylimorpha arenosana sp. n.¹

A list of 145 species of the family Tortricidae, recorded from the western part of Tuva, is presented. The material studied originates from a joint FinnishRussian expedition made in June 1995. Additional data have been taken from Ukrainian, Russian and German literature. Cochylimorpha arenosana n. sp. from sand dunes of Northern Mongolia is described. Three species, Falseuncaria lechriotoma Razowski, 1970, Acleris idonea Razowski, 1972 and Eucosma argentifera Razowski, 1972 - all described from Mongolia - are reported as new for Russia. From the total of 145 species 138 can be placed into three main zoogeographical complexes: Holarctic/Palaearctic about 83%, Mediterranean- Central-Asiatic about 10% and endemic for the mountains of CentralAsia about 7%. The Holarctic complex can be divided into four chorological groups: Holarctic (22 spp.), Transpalaearctic (65 spp.), Western Palaearctic (12 spp.) and Eastern Palaearctic (13 spp.). Subalpine meadows and grazed steppes of Mongun-Taiga and the Tannu-Ola Mnts. are inhabited by some endemics of the Central-Asian mountains (11 spp.)

Population densities and diversity of Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) along an air pollution gradient on the Kola Peninsula, Russia¹

The noctuid moths were monitored by means of bait traps from 1991 to 1993 in the area polluted by the Severonikel smelter on the Kola Peninsula. The total catch was 869 specimens belonging to 21 species. The catches peaked in sites representing the earlier stages of forest decline, being about two times as large as in the unpolluted area. The noctuid moths were heterogeneous in their response to pollution impact: (1) Xestia rhaetica, X. speciosa and Eurois occultus showed a clinal decline towards the emission source, (2) Diarsia mendica peaked at slightly polluted sites, (3) Acronicta auricoma, Hyppa rectilinea, Apamea maillardi and Xestia alpicola were most abundant in moderately polluted areas, (4) a mountain tundra species, Polia conspicua, was collected in heavily polluted sites only. However, neither species richness nor diversity of Noctuidae were affected by pollution