Higher Old-Age Pensions in France

The increase in nonlabor input cannot be measured directly in physical terms. Nonlabor input is estimated by taking the total increase in nonlabor costs during the period and deflating it by a price index. Under this procedure, the increase in the price index represents the increase resulting from prices and the residual (nonlabor cost in constant dollars) represents the nonlabor input. (The rates of increase were converted to average annual rates.) No precise deflator for hospital expenses was available, and the Consumer Price Index of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was used as a general index of price trends affecting hospitals. The data for nonlabor prices and input are therefore only rough approximations. As explained previously, the total increases for wages and prices and the total for labor and nonlabor inputs were estimated by combining the separate components appropriately weighted by hospital payroll and nonpayroll expenses. For this purpose, the average weight for each selected period was used.