Perpetual-inventory method

A method used by BEA to prepare estimates of the net stock of fixed assets, which, in turn, are used in deriving the NIPA estimates of consumption of fixed capital. For each type of asset, the net stock in each year is calculated as the cumulative value of gross investment through that year less the cumulative value of depreciation through that year. A variation of this method that omits depreciation is used to derive the stocks of private inventories.