DESCRIBING AND MEASURING SOCIOECONOMIC SYSTEMS - PREREQUISITES TO PLANNING

This paper describes, by means of a sort of scientific autobiography, the environmental development of social system accounts and models inc orporating new social indicators and the established data systems with in a more comprehensive framework, based on behavioral settings. This development includes studies of the U.S. economy as a whole, descripti ons of rural communities and small urban-centered regions, the concept ion of the Functional Economic Areas, and the new synthesis of rural a nd urban society in the U.S. Following these steps, a new challenge is represented by the description and measurement of complete social sys tems. From this point in time, research is aimed at integrating divers e concepts (behaviour settings and generalized media of social interch ange) to derive measures of social and total income.