BEA’s strategic plan for 2001-2005
BEA published a preliminary strategic plan in the December 2001 SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS and invited public comment. The plan, which incorporated suggestions from BEA’s customers, staff, and partner statistical agencies, presented the elements of BEA’s planned work and initiatives through 2005. As development of the preliminary strategic plan neared completion, Secretary of Commerce Donald E. Evans and Secretary of Treasury Paul H. O’Neill asked BEA to convene experts in the fields of economics and business and solicit their opinions and insights on the expansions and improvements to the national accounts necessary for capturing the changing economy. Participants in that meeting, held in November, 2001, included members of the Administration and other Federal Government and private-sector experts. The private-sector experts comprised the members of BEA’s Advisory Committee–distinguished economists and business people–and two invited guests, both distinguished economists.
Abstracts of the comments of those attending the meeting follow. They begin with Commerce Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Kathleen Cooper’s introductory remarks and end with BEA Advisory Committee Chair Professor William Nordhaus’s overview of targets for developing and broadening the national accounts. The comments reprinted here range from specific suggestions for improvements in the accounts to broad suggestions for recasting and expanding the accounts.
The revised plan is presented here, beginning on page 20, in table form by national economic account. The table summarizes each component of the plan and provides milestones through 2005 that serve as checks on progress toward the stated goals.
The strategic plan will be updated later this year to add milestones for FY 2006 and to reflect changes in priorities and opportunities. The activities listed in the revised table and the timing of the milestones are based on the assumption that BEA will receive adequate budget funding for each of those years.
I would like to thank the members of the BEA Advisory Committee and the expert commentators and the customers and other respondents for their valuable contributions to the refinement and further development of BEA’s strategic plan.
J. Steven Landefeld Director, Bureau of Economic Analysis
Kathleen B. Cooper
Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, U.S. Department of Commerce
I want to thank each of you for your attendance today. One of the pleasures of public service is to be able to draw on the thinking of such a distinguished group of economists for their insights-members of the Bureau of Economic Analysis advisory committee and special guests for this brainstorming session, Marina Whitman and Robert Hall. Let me also welcome and acknowledge Richard Clarida from the Treasury Department and Randy Kroszner from the CEA, who will share their perspectives with us. I must thank as well Lawrence Slifman from the Federal Reserve for joining us and for providing input on behalf of the Federal Reserve.
This is a brainstorming session, not a place for speeches. We would appreciate your expert evaluation on the design and composition of the national income and product accounts. Secretary Evans, Deputy Secretary Bodman, and I are committed to working with you to ensure that our national accounts meet the high standards demanded by today’s economy.
During today’s session, Richard Clarida will report to you that Treasury Secretary O’Neill shares these goals. Steve Landefeld, the Director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and I expect this session to be the first of several and hope you can participate throughout and share your recommendations to help guide our future work on the national accounts.
We have already begun a number of important changes here at BEA to improve the national accounts. Working closely with the President and the Congress, we received funding to begin the important task of upgrading the GDP to improve our measures on important sectors of the economy, including the impact of IT and telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, financial derivatives, and various forms of compensation. In addition, BEA took initial steps to address long-overdue and urgently-needed improvements to the reliability of its GDP processing system, while at the same time developing and beginning to implement a comprehensive plan to improve its performance. Other changes over the past year have been important first steps in providing electronic filing for respondents to BEA surveys and easier and expanded access to BEA,s Web site through interactive and easily downloadable data sets, which has been widely praised by data users.
In the upcoming year, BEA, with the support of the Administration, will be working on a number of initiatives to improve the quality and timeliness of economic statistics. Your contributions today will be important in fleshing out these activities. Indeed, BEA has made excellent strides in updating its strategic plan. What we learn from you will help us put the finishing touches on it.
Somewhere down the line in this process of improvement in the accounts lies the hard work of finding the financial resources for new initiatives, but that is not the business of today. Again, I thank you for accepting our invitation today and look forward to hearing your thoughts on this important topic.
Richard H. Clarida
Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, U.S. Department of Treasury
The goals of the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Treasury Department with regard to the national income and product accounts are broadly the same. We share a desire for the most accurate, detailed, and timely reporting possible of economic activity. BEA has long been recognized as the world leader in the field of statistical measurement of the economy. We wholeheartedly support BEA’s continuing efforts to improve the accounts.
Secretary of Treasury Paul O’Neill has expressed a special interest in this endeavor. As the result of his experience as Chairman and CEO of Alcoa and President of International Paper, he believes that, to the extent possible, policymakers should have ready access to “real-time” data on the economy on an aggregate and sector-by-sector basis. The availability of more timely statistics–sensitive to subtle changes in the economic climate–would enhance the decision-making ability of policy officials. The Secretary has directed Economic Policy (EP) to investigate new frameworks for organizing and interpreting economic information. These efforts have already resulted in improvements in the way EP presents and interprets the vast array of weekly and monthly indicators on the economy that are produced by BEA and other government agencies. The Treasury is also interested in encouraging efforts, such as those featured in a recent Staff Research Study Number 26 by the International Trade Commission (ITC), to assemble and organize information on the global commercial activity of U.S. multinational firms. The goal here is to make available in a timely and useful fashion, data on direct investment receipts and payments derived from sales made by foreign affiliates. This information, in conjunction with the data already provided on cross-border trade, would, in the words of the ITC report (pages 1-8) “provide a more complete perspective on how U.S. firms are faring in global markets, irrespective of their chosen mode of delivery.”
The U.S. statistical system has been without peer in its ability to respond to changing economic conditions and the statisticians at BEA are to be commended for their leadership in introducing innovative new measurement techniques. But world business activity is changing even more quickly. We look forward to working with you to find the best ways to capture new developments.
Lawrence Slifman
Associate Director, Division of Research and Statistics, Federal Reserve Board
It has been our experience at the Federal Reserve Board in putting together our estimates of industrial production and capacity utilization that much of what needs to be done to improve our estimates can only be done by the statisticians equivalent of house-to-house combat–that is, improving our measures one detailed item at a time. I think that many of my comments on BEA’s Strategic Plan fall into this category. Of course, for BEA the task is even more difficult because it must rely, to some extent, on a complementary “house-to-house” effort at the Census Bureau that would provide BEA with more detailed data from its economic programs on a more timely basis. Finally, I recognize that adopting my suggestions will not be costless; without additional funding for BEA and the economics programs at Census, implementation of my high priority items might well displace someone else’s high priority items. That said, let me proceed with my wish list.
The fundamental conceptual and statistical building block of the national income and product accounts (NIPA’s) is the input-output system and related items (for example, commodity and capital flow tables). It takes about 5 years from the time the quinquennial economic censuses are conducted until the input-output (I-O) system is rebenchmarked. Consequently, in November 2001, the national accounts were still based on estimates of the structure of the economy as it existed in 1992. Obviously, the structure of the economy has changed dramatically since 1992. If the accounts are to adequately portray the nature of economic activity currently, it is critical that the Census Bureau provide BEA more promptly with the data it needs to rebenchmark the I-O system and that once BEA has the data, it should proceed with rebenchmarking as quickly as possible.
Closely related to the I-O program at BEA is the work on measures of output by industry. As noted below, I would like to see a number of improvements to the measurement of the information technology (IT) sector. But in the context of the industry accounts, it would be extremely helpful to economic analysts to have more detail on IT industries–that is, at a finer level of disaggregation.
BEA already has a number of specific improvements to the accounts that are in train or have been proposed. Let me note a few that I think should be given high priority.
* Improvement of price measures, especially prices of services where the nature of the output is not easily defined, such as financial services and medical services.
* Develop data sources that will eliminate (or at least reduce) the reliance on trends for quarterly estimates of PCE services.
* Improve the measures of stock options and other types of variable pay.
* Continue the effort to achieve better integration of the NIPA’s and the flow of funds accounts.
Related to some of the proposals in BEA’s Strategic Plan is the issue of the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program (TCMP). The last time the IRS conducted TCMP audits was in the late 1980s. A new TCMP could potentially be extremely helpful in reconciling income and spending measures of GDP and in understanding other anomalies in the national accounts.
With regard to the IT sector, there are several areas where more work could be done both at the Census Bureau and at BEA.
* It would be very useful to researchers and BEA if the Census Bureau collected and published on a monthly basis data on the orders, shipments, and inventories of IT-equipment manufacturers at a finer level of disaggregation. For example, currently the monthly Census report gives information for manufacturers of communications equipment and semiconductors at the four-digit NAICS level, compared with the six-digit level for motor vehicles.
* Data sources should be developed that will help BEA do a better job at splitting sales of PCs among purchases by consumers, businesses, and governments.
* BEA needs to continue to do more work on developing appropriate deflators for a wider variety of IT equipment.
* The strategic plan calls for improving BEA’s measures of depreciation for IT equipment. This initiative is extremely important and should be given high priority.
I’ll conclude with a comment on the presentation of NIPA information. Currently, BEA produces a sector table for motor vehicle output quarterly and tables for farm and housing output annually. It would be helpful for many types of analysis to have more sector tables and to have them at a quarterly frequency. Examples include the energy and aircraft sectors and, perhaps, the insurance and pension sectors.
Randall S. Kroszner
Member, Council of Economic Advisers
Improving the reliability and timeliness of Federal statistics is an important and essential function of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Council of Economic Advisers lauds their efforts. Recent economic developments underscore the importance of high-quality economic statistics. The economic slowdown this year–especially in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11–significantly altered the economic environment facing the Administration. Having high-quality data has been critical to designing appropriate policies to address the new challenges.
There is, of course, plenty of room for further improvement. One notable sign of a problem in our Federal statistics was this year’s sizable GDP annual revision, which highlighted the need to collect data more frequently on the software industry. Another sign has been the large and growing statistical discrepancy between the output and income measures of GDP. The discrepancy indicates that the accuracy in measuring aggregate economic activity is deteriorating. This partly reflects the fact that the input-output tables–upon which GDP statistics are constructed–have become increasingly out-of-date and raise important questions about the accuracy of industry estimates of economic activity.
A key challenge facing BEA, and other statistical agencies, is to determine how best to continue to improve our Federal statistics in an environment of tight budget constraints. There might be, of course, several ways for BEA to proceed, but let me mention a few that deserve particular attention. One way is to be more selective in the choice of data to collect, process, and disseminate. There is already a priority in our Federal statistical programs to streamline existing programs, and considerable progress has been made over the years. BEA might consider taking a more aggressive approach to replacing existing, low-priority statistics programs with new programs aimed at better measurement of emerging economic trends.
Another way is to focus on increasing the efficiency of existing programs in order to stretch scarce budget dollars further. One possible initiative to achieve greater efficiency is to promote data sharing among Federal statistical agencies. It also has the potential to reduce reporting burdens on the public and improve the quality of the statistics for policymakers as well as researchers. For example, if even limited data sharing among BEA, Census, and BLS were allowed, BEA might be able to better integrate labor, capital, and output data, thereby providing a more accurate measurement of economic activity and a better understanding of how the economy works. I would be interested in hearing from others about concrete benefits to BEA from enhanced data sharing.
Currently, however, statutory barriers generally prevent statistical agencies from sharing data they collect with other agencies (especially for data production purposes), and new legislation would be required to enhance access across agencies. It should be noted that some of these barriers have played an important role in safeguarding the privacy of survey respondents because there are very different confidentiality standards under which various Federal statistical agencies operate. Hence, any expansion of data sharing powers would likely have to be coordinated with changes in confidentiality standards.
A good way to make progress on data sharing is to build on the previous efforts. The Statistical Efficiency Act of 1999 is a good example of the types of reforms that should be considered. The Act included enhanced data sharing among Federal statistical agencies and also strengthened confidentiality provisions to safeguard the privacy of survey respondents. It is important to note that the House passed the Act in a bipartisan fashion, but it stalled in the Senate.
BEA should also continue to seek opportunities to partner with the private sector in order to boost efficiencies. To be sure, the private sector could help collect data and even help to process and disseminate it. For example, retail chains have extensive computer tracking systems for real-time purchases–a wealth of untapped data on consumer spending patterns. And high-tech firms have excellent information on inventories, sales, and prices, which could help to provide a better snapshot of innovations that are driving the “new economy.” The key issue is how can a partnership be structured so that it does not compromise the high quality of Federal statistics that we have come to expect: How difficult would it be for BEA and other statistical agencies to set standards and oversee the data collection efforts of the private sector? Is it possible to carefully design safeguards to ensure privacy and confidentiality? Can contractual obligations be enforced to guarantee that private sector partners would maintain the quality and comparability of the data over time? Would partnering with the private sector allow Federal statistical agencies to respond more flexibly to structural changes in the economy? What cost advantages might arise from such partnerships?
Robert E. Hall
Robert and Carole McNeil Joint Professor of Economics, Stanford University, and Chair of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee
I appreciate the opportunity to represent the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) at this session on the future of the accounts. Let me begin by reacting to some of the various suggestions that other panel members have provided. First, it’s an interesting question as to the value of a monthly estimate of GDP. I know that from my perspective, as Chair of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, we are uncertain about how we might use a monthly estimate of GDP in our work. The current recession has made us think more than before about the relative importance of employment and output. In past recessions, the two have moved together, because productivity remained constant or fell during the recession. With the continuation of rapid productivity growth during the current recession, we find a mild contraction in output (quarterly GDP) with a normal contraction in employment. Monthly GDP would assist in determining peak and trough dates, especially to those whose definitions of recessions emphasize output. I personally (not as Chair) tend to emphasize employment, so quarterly GDP would play a fairly small role in my personal chronology.
Among the agenda of items that BEA is considering, I suggest that further work on software should be a priority. The new economy has been propelled by general-purpose technology that is very flexible and includes both hardware and software. Rapid speed of innovation is a characteristic of the new economy. You can build an application on Oracle in 3 days that would have taken months in the 1980s. Wal-Mart, with one million-plus employees, owes its success to general-purpose technologies, but its contributions are not yet fully measured.
In pursuing this further work on software, the focus should be on final demand, because intermediate products come out in the wash. Without adequate valuation of final products, the contributions to real value of goods and services provided to consumers by the companies using the products of Oracle and Sun Microsystems are not measured. Other examples where the value of services provided to consumers is not measured is the convenience value offered by services such as eBay, Travelocity, and southwest.com.
Another area of work that I would endorse is the Jorgensonian framework. This provides a more comprehensive view of the economy, going beyond value added to total product flows, integrating GDP-by-industry flows with financial flows, and doing further work on intangibles.
Alan J. Auerbach
Robert D. Burch Professor of Economics and Law, University of California, Berkeley
I am particularly interested in three areas of data enhancement:
* Integration of the Federal Reserve financial data and BEA’s capital stock and savings data;
* More comprehensive measures of international capital flows, including derivatives and other instruments; and
* More comprehensive measures of compensation, including stock options, bonuses, etc.
Therefore, I would appreciate a discussion of the steps that BEA plans to take in each of these areas; that is, what will we have that we don’t have now?
Also, it may be unrealistic to hope for this, but I would find it very helpful if some gauge of accuracy were available with initial GDP estimates. Growth rates are subject to considerable revision, and a statement of the “plus or minus” interval would be useful. Presumably, such a confidence interval would be based on past experience with revisions. Especially around turning points, where even the sign of the change in GDP is hard to predict, this additional information would provide an important caution to users of the statistics who are not particularly well-informed about the revision process.
Dale W. Jorgenson
Frederic Eaton Abbe Professor of Economics, Harvard University
The first issue to be addressed is, why do we need a new architecture for the national accounts? In this context, “architecture” refers to the conceptual framework for the national accounts. An example of such a framework is the United Nations’ System of National Accounts 1993 (SNA93). This provides a complete accounting system, including income and expenditure, production, capital formation, and wealth accounts. The purpose of such a framework is to guide the conceptual development of a system of national accounts.
A conceptual framework for the national accounts should be carefully distinguished from a specific plan for improvements to the accounts, such as the BEA strategic plan. The strategic plan focuses on BEA’s own plans for the future and is very important in laying out priorities and eliciting responses from the user community. However, the plan does not provide a rationale for the priorities or relate BEA’s plans to those of other statistical agencies with interests in the national accounts. This is a particularly important omission in a decentralized statistical system, like the Federal system in the United States.
An illustration of an issue that would be part of a new architecture is the integration of the national income and product accounts (NIPA’s) with the capital formation and wealth accounts that form the flow of funds accounts, produced by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB). BEA has made important progress in developing the asset side for such a system through its capital stock study. And the results have been incorporated into the national balance sheet by the FRB. However, new architecture or new thinking is required to link the balance sheet to the generation of incomes and products.
The second issue to be considered is, why not use SNA93? SNA93 would be part of any new architecture, since it embodies the collective experience of the national accounting community and is familiar to many people working on the U.S. national accounts. However, it fails to provide the income and product accounts in current and constant prices needed for many applications of the national accounts, such as estimation of potential output. Consistency in the boundaries among the various component accounts is an unresolved issue in SNA93. Wealth, for example, refers to a different set of economic units than income and product.
A more fruitful approach begins with the NIPA’s and develops a system of capital formation and wealth accounts with the same boundaries. This could be linked to the generation of incomes and products, so that the income and expenditure and the production accounts could be presented in current and constant prices. These accounts could be generated at both aggregate and industry levels and would provide a link to productivity measurement, a critical omission in the original formulation of national accounting systems by Simon Kuznets, Richard Stone, and the other originators of these systems.
An important advantage of the approach I have suggested is that the NIPA’s would remain unchanged, at least initially. Improvements in the source data would continue to provide better estimates, including better deflation of outputs. However, the NIPA’s would be extended to encompass wealth accounts and these would gradually be integrated with the NIPA’s along the lines I have suggested. The new architecture would provide a new approach to national accounting that builds on the United Nations’ system but would gradually supersede it.
To illustrate some of the implications of the new architecture, I will consider the production account as an example. A detailed illustration of this account is given in my Presidential Address to the American Economic Association (“Information Technology and the U.S. Economy,” American Economic Review, March 2001, pp. 1-32.) This takes BEA’s concept of gross domestic product (GDP) as a point of departure and adds estimates of capital and labor inputs to convert gross domestic income to constant prices. These estimates incorporate capital data from the BEA capital stock study.
I have just completed a new paper giving detailed production accounts by industry. These incorporate the BEA interindustry transactions accounts. (“Information Technology, Higher Education, and the Sources of Economic Growth across U.S. Industries,” with Mun S. Ho and Kevin J. Stiroh, to be presented to the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, Washington, DC, April 26-27, 2002.) For each industry the output is BEA’s “gross output,” and the input is broken down by capital, labor, and intermediate inputs. Each of these is presented in current and constant prices.
The key innovation in this production account is the introduction of the concept of the flow of capital services. This is employed in the NIPA’s in measures of the rental value of housing. The new architecture extends this idea to all categories of assets included in the BEA capital stock study. A parallel concept of the flow of labor services is broken down by age, sex, education, and class of employment with individual components weighted by total compensation per hour worked. The detailed architecture is laid out in Paul Schreyer’s Productivity Manual, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development in 2001.
What are the next steps in developing a new architecture for the production account? The first order of priority should be development of a conceptual framework for integrating the NIPA’s and the BEA interindustry transactions accounts. This has been done by Robert Yuskavage (“Priorities for Industry Accounts at BEA,” paper presented to the BEA Advisory Committee, November 17, 2000). A very important detail is providing a time series link between the industry accounts before and after the introduction of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
A longer-term issue is consideration of production of annual interindustry transactions tables on the same schedule as the NIPA’s. This is already done by the Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), but using less detailed data than in BEA’s annual tables. However, the BLS tables are available at the same time as the NIPA’s. Unfortunately, they do not incorporate the latest information from the annual revisions of the NIPA’s. A system for producing the two data sets simultaneously is already in place in Australia and Canada and has been adopted by the United Kingdom. This should be considered by BEA.
The third step would be construction of a production account at both aggregate and industry levels along the lines I have suggested. Fortunately, much of the required work is already available, at least in prototype, in the papers I have written on the production account. These are carefully integrated with the NIPA’s and other data sets produced by BEA, such as gross product originating, the capital stock study, and hours worked. Unfortunately, my papers inherit some of the gaps in the BEA data sets, such as the inconsistency between the NIPA’s and the interindustry transactions accounts.
I have sketched the new architecture for the production account of the NIPA’s as an illustration of the conceptual work to be done. Similar issues arise for the income and expenditure account, as well as the capital formation and wealth accounts, which should be considered together. The first of these can be considered within BEA, but involves important practical issues, such as reconciling commodity flow and expenditure data on personal consumption expenditures. The second involves agreement on a common architecture with the FRB and implementation of a joint program to produce wealth accounts on the same schedule as the annual NIPA’s.
A further development of this architecture, foreshadowed by SNA93, would add satellite accounting systems modeled in the integrated system. For example, nonmarket activity related to time use could be compiled in the form of production, income and expenditure, and wealth accounts. Barbara Fraumeni and I have done this in a series of papers, focusing on investment and saving in the form of human capital. (Reprinted in my book, Postwar U.S. Economic Growth, The MIT Press, 1995, pp. 273-388.) This would provide guidance to statistical agencies outside BEA for developing satellite systems consistent with the NIPA’s.
The idea that national accounting is a field that has become isolated from the rest of economics can now be laid to rest. There are many exciting problems that lie ahead in developing a new architecture for the national accounts, and many of these will require the skills in economics that have been developed by the BEA staff. Members of the staff will find enthusiastic support from the academic research community with interests in economic measurement. Economists are on the verge of creating a new way of measuring and understanding our new economy.
Robert J. Gordon
Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences, Northwestern University
BEA has made much progress. I like the cooperation that is occurring between government and academic economists. The U.S. leads the world in quality-adjusted prices. I also like the speed-up that is occurring in GPO-by-industry estimates. My priorities include a regular publication of reconciliations of various government estimates, particularly between the NIPA’s and the flow of funds accounts. Other reconciliations should include the CPI and PCE deflators, GPO by industry and corresponding BLS estimates of productivity and output, and the index of industrial production and the NIPA’s. I would like to see the publication of quarterly real capital stock estimates, and I want better investment deflators. The use of scanner data should lead to improved CPI estimates. There are problems with some matched-model estimates. Price indexes for nonresidential construction are also in need of improvement. Finally, I would like to see more historical research; for example, why have the 1929-48 growth rates been revised up?
Marina v.N. Whitman
Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy, University of Michigan
It’s difficult to add much to the very thorough analysis that has already occurred. The data required to implement the suggestions are in principle available; the issue on the Government side is whether the necessary resources–money and people–can be made available and, on the corporate side, whether companies are willing to collect and compile the necessary data, which in some cases can be a major task.
As regards the need for better, more complete, and more timely data, one can only say “yes indeed,” but one must also recognize the trade-off between the speed with which initial estimates come out and the potential size of later revisions.
In particular, better data on services are essential, and becoming more urgent as services’ share of our national GDP continues to increase. Furthermore, services are less likely than goods to be provided across national boundaries in the form of exports or imports as traditionally defined, since they generally require both investment and presence in the local market to be served. This fact links the growing importance of cross-boundary services to the need for alternative measures of international trade and finance in the balance of payments accounts, an issue that I’ll discuss in more detail later.
As regards interactions between financial and real markets (that is, integrating BEA’s NIPA and balance-of-payments accounts with the Fed’s flow-of-funds and balance-sheet accounts), what is needed is not only better data on derivatives and other financial instruments, particularly for short-term and portfolio capital flows, but also, for direct foreign investment, a clearer distinction between the physical location of an investment and its sources of financing. And, within the direct foreign investment accounts, means should be found to reconcile flows with changes in stocks. Currently, they tend not to match up at all (sometimes even the signs are different), even when valuation changes are taken explicitly into account.
Currently, the U.S. balance on goods and services in our balance-of-payments accounts is measured according to the traditional “residency” concept: Things produced in the United States and sold abroad are defined as exports; things produced abroad and sold here are imports. The “alternative” measure under discussion substitutes the concept of “ownership” for that of “residency”; goods and services produced by American-owned firms anywhere in the world are “exports,” while those produced by foreign-owned firms, even if physically located within U.S. borders, are counted as “imports.”
The growing focus on this alternative measure reflects the vast increase in the complexity of American multinationals’ activities, a development that has been a major factor in global economic integration, as well as the recognition that trade and direct investment are often complements, as opposed to the traditional view that they are competing channels through which to serve markets abroad. In fact, as companies have sliced and diced the value-added chain into ever-finer pieces, overseas sales by U.S. firms’ foreign affiliates (either for local sale or as inputs into exports to the home country or to third markets) have increased substantially in importance relative to exports directly from the headquarter’s country.
The question of whether the residency or the ownership concept is more relevant to the distinction between “domestic” and “foreign” goods and services has been on the radar screen at least since the early-1990s debate between Bob Reich and Laura Tyson regarding “who is us?”. The question is relevant for a variety of national policy issues–including, for example, the question of which firms should be eligible for membership in government-private partnerships, such as the Clinton Administration’s Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, that contain an element of public subsidy.
In fact, the answer differs with the question at issue. Where returns to labor, in the form of jobs and wages, are concerned, it is the residency concept that matters; for returns to capital, the ownership concept is generally more appropriate. The ownership concept also dominates with respect to the United States’ economic influence on the world economy, the global competitiveness of American firms, and issues regarding market access for these firms. And, contrary to long-held beliefs, neither concept is fully adequate where pressures on currency markets are the issue. Thus, the answer to the question “which one should we track and measure?” is in this case “both.”
The expanded use of the alternative definition poses issues of its own, however. Among them are:
* Just how should “net” be defined? A National Academy of Sciences report subtracts purchased goods and services to arrive at its definitions, while the BEA/ Julius version subtracts these plus payments to foreign labor and capital. Which is the correct definition depends, again, on the question at hand. The former is a measure of the globalization of American multinationals’ activities, while the latter measures their direct impact on the economy of the United States and of those other nations where U.S.-owned multinationals conduct activities.
* How is “control” defined? In traditional balance-of-payments accounting, 10-percent ownership is the dividing line between “portfolio” and “direct” investment. But if one includes any ownership level below 51 percent, there is a potential for double-counting; in principle, the controlling interest in the firm could reside in more than one country.
* The term “ownership” is itself ambiguous. Should one weight ownership by the fraction of a firm’s total shares held in each country? And is it even possible to collect such data?
* What are the implications of the alternative measure of goods-and-services accounting for its mirror image in the financial accounts?
Stepping back for a better view of the forest, two broader questions arise:
* How reluctant will firms be to collect and compile the data necessary for either definition of netting, whose requirements are far more detailed and complex (and therefore more expensive in both time and money) than simply gathering data on gross sales in each country where the firm does business?
* As intrafirm trade has grown as a proportion of total trade, issues of internal transfer pricing have loomed larger with respect to such policy issues as taxation, dumping, and others. But with the continuing breakup of the value-added chain and the wide variety of partnerships, alliances, etc. that are continuously coming into being, the boundaries of a “firm” may themselves become increasingly fuzzy, implying that it may become harder to tell “us” from “them” at the level of the firm as well as that of the Nation.
William D. Nordhaus
A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, Yale University, and Chair of the BEA Advisory Committee
The U.S. national economic accounts are by necessity a work in progress. Their unfinished state is in part due to the limited resources available to any statistical agency. But even more it reflects the underlying evolution in the nature and composition of the economy, changes in available source data, improved statistical and economic methodologies, and increased linkages with the world outside our borders, along with changes in the priorities of those who use the accounts. These incessant changes require a parallel philosophy among those who design and produce the accounts.
There are many possible targets for developing and broadening the national economic accounts. In this brief overview, I will list three that appear to be central to me. The first category, improving the core accounts, involves relatively straightforward extensions of the current activities of BEA. The second, integration of income and capital accounts, requires a new initiative and improvements in underlying source data. The third category, developing satellite accounts on nonmarket activities, will require new methodologies but will illuminate our society in ways that cannot be captured by existing market accounts.
Improve timeliness, accuracy, and coverage of core accounts
The U.S. national income and product accounts (NIPA’s) arose in response to the Great Depression. Measures of national output at that time were incomplete and produced with a long lag, so policymakers had only impressionistic views of economic trends based on scattered financial and industrial data. The first accounts were developed at the Commerce Department in collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research under the leadership of Dr. Simon Kuznets, who received the Nobel Prize for his pioneering role in that work. These accounts were submitted to the Senate in 1934 and published as a Senate document.
Since that time, the “core accounts,” which consist of the major accounts for income, product, and expenditure, have been developed and expanded in many directions. Among the important developments have been sectoral and regional accounts as well as series that illuminate trends in national saving and investment, per capita output and income, the return to capital, inflation, productivity, the shares of income going to different factors of production, international linkages, and the sources of economic growth. The current core accounts are an essential ingredient for analyzing U.S. economic conditions and trends.
Given the continuing importance of the core accounts, I would point to three general areas that could use some tuning up.
Recommendation 1. The first priority for BEA is continuing to improve the coverage and detail of the core accounts.
Continuing to develop and improve the core accounts should clearly be the top BEA priority. The BEA strategic plan contains many elements for improving the core accounts. (1) Among the most important items to improve existing accounts, I would place the following: Development of a full set of integrated income and wealth accounts; more timely publication of the input-output data; continuing the development of the industry accounts with a full set of comparable historical data; improvement of source data with particular attention to the income side of the accounts; ensuring a smooth transition to the new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS); and improved measurement of real output in those sectors where price indexes are deficient. Some of these will be discussed in greater detail below.
In addition to the ongoing work on improving and developing the core accounts, I point to two areas that deserve particular attention.
Recommendation 2. Working with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), BEA should work to improve the price indexes underlying the national accounts.
It is little appreciated that the Government virtually never measures “real GDP.” Rather, real output is derived from nominal output and the associated price indexes. For this reason, developing accurate price indexes is critical for the accurate measurement of the real side of the national accounts.
One of the most exciting areas for those working with government data has been the improvement in price indexes over the last two decades. BEA has been in the forefront of this movement, first with computer prices, and then, working with BLS, in many other areas.
Much progress has been made–but much work remains to be done. BEA and BLS need to continue to develop realistic price indexes for those areas of the accounts where input-type measures are used (such as in financial services and health care) or where the deflators are not closely related to the actual good or service to which it is associated. Additionally, BEA and BLS should continue to march ahead in improving their measures of quality change and the inclusion of new products, particularly with the introduction of hedonic techniques where appropriate. (2)
Recommendation 3. BEA should work to improve the timeliness and accuracy of its reports and to develop an experimental monthly GDP series.
One area of continuing importance for the national accounts is to produce data that will improve our understanding and therefore our managing of business cycles. The economic history of the recession of 2001 will ultimately be written based primarily on the data coming from the national accounts along with data from the labor market.
Currently, the “advance” GDP estimates are published at the end of the first month following the end of the quarter to which they refer. The timing and quality of the advance estimates are limited by the absence or poor quality of certain key data, such as those on inventories and international trade. It seems likely that a modest investment in improved source data in a few key areas can shift the entire schedule of releases forward by 1 or 2 weeks. While I know of no formal studies of the value of early information in this area, the value is likely to be many times larger that the cost of gathering the required new data to prepare more reliable and timely GDP estimates.
BEA prepares estimates for the major output and income series averaged on a quarterly and annual basis. I have never understood why the subannual basis for the accounts was quarterly rather than monthly, weekly, or semiannually, although I would guess that this practice arose because company accounts, which were originally so critical to national accounts, were presented on a quarterly basis.
I would recommend that BEA consider developing the major income and product accounts on a monthly basis. Indeed, at present many components of the accounts (incomes, production, and prices) are already available on a monthly basis. Consumption, government spending, inventory changes, foreign trade, labor market data, and virtually all major income measures except profits are available on a monthly basis. It would appear relatively straightforward to develop procedures for estimating or interpolating the missing variables on a monthly basis. It should be emphasized that the only current monthly output measure, the Federal Reserve’s monthly industrial production index, is unrepresentative of the economy in that it covers less than 20 percent of GDP and omits the entire service and trade sectors.
There are many reasons for developing monthly GDP, but one important reason is that it will provide more timely and useful information on the pattern of cyclical movements. The business cycle of 2001 provides a useful illustration. Most economic data indicated that the economy was slowing from early 2001 and that the trauma of 9/11 had accelerated the downturn. Forecasts in late September and October 2001, particularly those from the New York financial community, were extremely gloomy. Data on sensitive sectors, such as travel and finance, tended to reinforce the gloom.
Because of the peculiar shape and timing of the 9/11 aftermath, the quarterly GDP data were unhelpful for forecasters and policymakers. The sharpest economic reaction to 9/11 probably came in late September and early October 2001, but this would have affected only one-sixth of the data for the third quarter. The major impact on GDP, if there were one, would be seen in the fourth quarter, whose advance and incomplete estimates were not available until January 30, 2002. Indeed, it was not until the preliminary estimates became available on February 28, 2002, that it became clear that real economic growth for the fourth quarter of 2002 was safely in the positive range. The growth rate for the second half of 2001 was essentially zero, and indeed, based on output movements, the recession appears to be the mildest in post-World War II history. (3)
Without the actual monthly GDP data, we cannot know how the pattern of output in late 2001 would have looked. But it is surely possible that by November 2001 discerning eyes would have suspected that the downturn was very mild and that the recession had essentially come to an end. Whether major policy errors were made in anticipation of a serious recession will have to wait for further analysis, data, and reflection.
Monthly GDP will be no panacea for policymakers. It may prove highly volatile and subject to excessive revisions. However, given BEA’s existing data, it would seem useful to provide monthly GDP data on an experimental basis.
Improve and integrate asset and wealth accounts with income and product accounts
The next set of suggestions involves issues that are directed toward major conceptual gaps in the U.S. economic statistical system that BEA is most centrally posed to fill. While there are many issues, I will focus on developing a full set of asset and wealth accounts and linking those with the income and product accounts.
Historically, BEA has focused its work on developing income, expenditure, and product accounts, along with elaborations in terms of sectoral, regional, and international detail. Much less attention has been devoted to asset and wealth accounts, or to linking the asset and wealth accounts to the income and product accounts. At present, BEA maintains a detailed set of accounts on capital and capital formation, while the Federal Reserve has the financial complement of that in its flow of funds accounts. However, the United States at present does not have a comprehensive set of asset accounts that is conceptually consistent with and linked to the income and product accounts.
In this respect, it is instructive that we speak of the NIPA’s rather than the national economic accounts. One of the major tasks of BEA and its sibling agencies should be to broaden the U.S. accounts to encompass a comprehensive set of national economic accounts linking production, income, consumption, accumulation, and wealth. The development of a set of national economic accounts is a major feature of the internationally developed system of national accounts (SNA). (4) Many of the principles and practices involved in a comprehensive set of national economic accounts have been realized for the United States in the Jorgenson set of accounts. (5) In moving toward a set of comprehensive accounts, the United States would also help achieve the important goal of harmonizing its accounting practices with those of other countries.
Recommendation 4. BEA should work with the Federal Reserve to develop a full set of asset and wealth accounts.
Recommendation 5. BEA should develop a full set of linked national economic accounts that include production, income, consumption, accumulation, and wealth.
These recommendations are really two prongs of a common research project, which is to elaborate the wealth and asset structure of the United States and to make the linkage of the asset and accumulation accounts to the income and product flows.
The major purpose of such a set of accounts would be to provide a full and consistent framework for understanding the evolution of income, capital formation, and wealth. I will sketch two important applications here: Resolving the ambiguity about techniques for measuring the national and personal savings rates and improving current measures of saving and investment.
The first point involves conceptual difficulties in measuring savings. The traditional product-account (or NIPA) measure of saving in the national income accounts is the difference between current income and consumption. The NIPA definition contrasts with the asset-account definition, which is (or should be) the change in real net wealth. The difference between the production-account and the asset-account definitions became particularly large during the asset bubble of the late 1990s. Data compiled by Gale and Sabelhaus indicate that for the 1990-99 period, the personal savings rate was a meager 3 percent of income using the product-account definition and a healthy 17 percent using the asset-account definition. (6) A similar calculation by Lusardi, Skinner, and Venti found the net asset-account savings rate for 1999 was 45 percent while the NIPA savings rate was 3 percent. (7) An integrated set of accounts, with a reconciliation table for different concepts, would help policymakers and analysts keep the different concepts and numbers clearly in mind.
A second set of issues concerns the narrowness of current product-account measures of saving and investment. It is not generally recognized that current measures of investment and saving cover an extremely limited sphere, including only investment in tangible capital (such as factories, equipment, inventories, and houses) along with software. Current concepts omit a wide variety of investment-type activities. Some important omissions are the acquisition of tangible nonhuman capital–such as consumer durables by households; development of land; expenditures for research and development; expenditures for education; the opportunity costs of students’ time; the opportunity cost of training; and much of the Nation’s expenditures for health.
It must be hard to explain to a student or a Secretary of Commerce why the purchase of a factory to produce a new drug is investment while the expenditure on research on that drug is not; or why building a new library is investment while purchasing new books for the shelves is not. We have only the sketchiest of estimates for the size of the omission, but estimates by Eisner indicated that the standard definition might underestimate the national saving and investment rate by as much as 500 percent. (8) Recent studies of Jorgenson and Fraumeni lead to similar conclusions. (9)
A great capitalist country such as the United States needs a fully developed set of capital accounts.
The challenge of accounts for nonmarket activity
A final important challenge for the longer term lies in the area of nonmarket accounts. The national income and product accounts are the most important measures of overall economic activity for a nation. Nevertheless, since their original development, there have been concerns that the accounts are incomplete and misleading because they do not cover vast continents of nonmarket activity such as unpaid work, the value of leisure time, much investment in human capital, and, most recently, the impact of and on the environment.
The four recommendations in this area involve research, methodology, developing the framework, and data collection to begin the construction of nonmarket accounts. These activities should be undertaken jointly by BEA, other Federal statistical agencies, private researchers, along with the activities in other countries, but BEA can play a key leadership role in organizing these efforts.
Recommendation 6. BEA should work with other government agencies and with private researchers to begin development of the framework and data collection for a set of nonmarket accounts.
The threshold question is why should we devote scarce intellectual and governmental resources to studying nonmarket sectors? The basic reason is that economic and social welfare does not stop at the market’s border but extends to many nonmarket activities.
Three particular areas are worth emphasizing. One important reason why we need better measures of nonmarket activity is because we spend increasingly fewer of our lifetime hours in market activities. A second and more speculative reason concerns the growing importance of nonmarket assets or mispriced market assets such as the environment and technology. A third reason, highlighted above, is that current measures of national saving and investment are defective because they omit much of the investment that takes place outside the marketplace. I will highlight three priorities in developing nonmarket accounts: green accounts, time-use studies, and health accounts.
Recommendation 7. Among the priorities for nonmarket accounts is the development of a set of resource and environmental accounts.
Critics of conventional accounts point to their omission of the contribution of natural resources and the environment to economic activity. Environmentalists argue that America’s wasteful, consumptive ways are squandering our precious “natural capital.” This issue was partially addressed when BEA unveiled its integrated environmental and economic satellite accounts (or IEESA’s), designed to estimate the contribution of natural and environmental resources to the Nation’s income. The first step, published in 1994, was a set of accounts for subsoil assets including oil, gas, and subsoil minerals. (10)
Many were surprised by the results of this first assay into green accounting. BEA’s estimates take into account that discovery adds to our proven reserves at the same time that extraction subtracts from or depletes these reserves (whereas both these activities are omitted from current core accounts). In fact, these two activities were almost exactly offsetting in the period BEA investigated. The net effect of both discoveries and depletions from 1958 to 1991 was between minus $2 billion and plus $1 billion, depending on the method used, as compared with an average GDP over this period of $4,200 billion (in 1992 prices). Another important finding was that the rate of return to nonfinancial capital was reduced by 1 to 2 percentage points when depletion was accounted for.
A full set of environmental and resource accounts would require further work to develop accounts for renewable resources (such as timber and water) and environmental assets (such as the cost of emissions or the impact of air pollution on the economy and human health). Although a great deal of work has been done on valuing components of air quality, to date there have been no comprehensive environmental accounts for the United States. However, a recent study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggests that, in contrast to the minerals accounts, environmental accounts might produce large numbers. (11) Much methodological work and data gathering are required before a full set of environmental accounts can be developed. Many of the issues were reviewed by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, whose report was published by the Academy and in the SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS. (12)
Recommendation 8. The U.S. should continue to work toward a comprehensive time-use survey of the U.S. population, which is the single most important data source for understanding nonmarket activity.
The most precious of all our endowments is time, the 24 hours each day that we have to “spend” in work or play or study. Compared with many trivial areas, we know next to nothing about how Americans use their time because, unlike most other major countries, the United States does not collect regular data on time use by the population. This important gap in the Federal statistical system will be filled beginning with the BLS American Time Use Survey (ATUS), scheduled to begin in early 2003 and designed to measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, commuting, and socializing. (13) This initiative is in my view the most important and exciting Federal statistical initiative today and deserves careful continuing review and ample fiscal resources.
Better data on time use is critical for many areas in augmented and nonmarket accounting. We need time-use data for building household accounts, for estimating the relative importance of nonmarket investment and consumption, for estimating trends in leisure time, and for understanding the activities of that third of the U.S. population that is retired. Moreover, current measures of work hours used in productivity measures could be improved with focused time-use studies, particularly for the growing share of the workforce (such as professionals for which data hours are relatively unreliable).
One unique feature of time budgets is that they provide a comprehensive budget that includes all activities–nonmarket as well as market. Because time inputs are the most valuable economic input, a time budget will also allow a rough estimate of the relative importance of market and nonmarket activities. While we have extremely sparse historical time-use data for the United States, data on time use in the United Kingdom over the last century indicate that work hours have declined from about half to less than 20 percent of disposable adult hours, although that trend appears to have stabilized in recent years. (14) An important topic is to determine the relative importance of nonmarket and market activities.
Recommendation 9. Estimating intangible and nonmarket investments is a high priority for both nonmarket accounts and for understanding saving and wealth.
A large and growing share of the economy’s resources is devoted to investments in education, research, and health. As noted above, because of faulty accounting, their contribution to economic welfare is misclassified, underestimated, and omitted–misclassified because they are largely treated as consumption or intermediate product rather than investment; underestimated because we routinely mismeasure the real output growth of these activities; and omitted because the accounts leave out those activities, particularly important for education, that occur outside the marketplace.
A sector in which augmented accounts may be particularly illuminating is the health-care sector. I will summarize a recent study that asks how standard measures of income would change if they adequately reflected improvements in the health status of the population. (15) Traditional income and product accounts look at the flows of consumption and income but do not consider the length of life or the quality of the population’s health. We might broaden our accounting concepts to include “health income” by correcting income measures for mortality and morbidity changes. Such an approach would take into account improvements in health status along with the implicit prices of improved health. If, for example, an individual would pay 1 percent of market consumption each year to gain an additional life-year, then we use that value to account for improvements in health status.
An example will illustrate the methodology. From 1975 to 1995, the population-weighted average annual mortality rate declined by 2.25 per year per thousand persons. Using standard estimates of the willingness to pay to reduce mortality risk ($2.66 million per life saved in 1992 prices), this decline in mortality is valued at $5,985 per person per year over this period. The average per capita consumption over this period was $14,700 per year. Hence the economic value of improvements of living standards due to reduced mortality is 40 percent of consumption over this period, or about 2 percent per year. I have constructed a preliminary set of estimates of the value of improvements in life expectancy for the period 1900-1995 using actual data on life expectancy, population distribution, and consumption. (These estimates omit changes in morbidity, for which data are relatively poor.) The major result is that the value of improvements in life expectancy over the twentieth century was about as large as the value of the growth in all nonhealth market consumption goods and services put together. Over this period, the value of improved health or health income grew at an average annual rate between 2.2 and 3.0 percent of the value of market consumption whereas consumption grew at a rate of about 2.1 percent. This suggests that a proper accounting of the value of health improvements would produce a major revision to our measured living standards.
Conclusion
The purpose of this discussion has been to give a flavor of the exciting developments and prospects for improving and extending the national economic accounts. There is much fruitful work ahead that will sharpen our estimates, make them more timely and reliable, improve their utility for understanding both business cycles and economic growth, as well as broaden the purview of the national economic accounts.
BEA’s Strategic Plan for 2001-2005, Detailed Table
NATIONAL INCOME, EXPENDITURE, AND WEALTH ACCOUNTS
Programs and New Initiatives: FY 2001-2005
Programs 2001 2002
National Income and Prepared quarterly and Prepare quarterly and
Product Accounts annual estimates of annual estimates of
(NIPA) Estimates GDP and NIPA tables; GDP and NIPA tables.
published NIPA
volumes.
Monthly Personal Prepared monthly Prepare monthly
Income and Outlays estimates of personal estimates of personal
income and outlays. income and outlays.
Fixed Assets and Prepared annual Prepare annual
Consumer Durable estimates of fixed estimates of fixed
Goods assets and consumer assets and consumer
durable goods; durable goods; publish
released 1999 Fixed Assets volume.
comprehensive revision
estimates.
International Prepared NIPA Update NIPA estimates
Submissions estimates based on consistent with 1993
1999 comprehensive SNA for OECD. Prepare
revision consistent GFS for Treasury to
with new 1993 System submit to IMF.
of National Accounts
(SNA) for OECD.
Prepared Government
Finance Statistics
(GFS) for Treasury to
submit to IMF.
NIH Research & Prepared estimates of Prepare estimates and
Development (R&D) R&D biomedical price update weights of R&D
Biomedical Price index for NIH under biomedical price index
Index reimbursable contract. for NIH under
reimbursable contract.
New Initiatives
Implement North Converted inventory Prepare wage and
American Industry estimates to NAICS salary estimates with
Classification System basis; estimated NAICS source data,
(NAICS) personal consumption which will be
expenditures (PCE) and converted to a Standard
investment in Industrial
equipment with NAICS Classification (SIC)
source data. basis.
NIPA Central System Prepared functional Develop and program
Modernization requirements for new first phase of new
central system (joint central system (joint
with OCIO, with OCIO,
contractor). contractor).
Alternative Measures Completed joint paper Publish paper and
of Saving with Federal Reserve present it at
Board staff on conferences; prepare
alternative measures regular updates of
of saving. measures.
Interactive Web Data Developed tool to Extend tool to provide
Access provide selected, tables for fixed
annual, and 3-digit assets and consumer
NIPA tables interac- durable goods and for
tively on Web (joint underlying detail
with OCIO, (joint with OCIO,
contractor). contractor).
Convert Table Began work to automate Complete work to
Generation the generation of automate the genera-
tables for news tion of tables for
release and Survey news release and
(joint with OCIO and Survey (joint with
CBAD). OCIO and CBAD).
New Quality-Adjusted Introduced improved Conduct research and
Prices prices for local area develop new quality-
network equipment. adjusted prices.
Improved Services Conducted research and Conduct research and
Measures developed new measures develop new measures
of services. of services. Submit
proposals for new
measures of insurance
and other selected
services.
Improved Estimates of Developed and Review and improve
Software Investment introduced improved benchmark estimation
quarterly software of software.
estimation method.
Employee Stock Conduct research on Conduct research and
Options employee stock develop conceptual
options. framework for
measuring employee
stock options.
Federal Investment Began re-engineering Complete database
and Consumption of system for Federal design and user
System Government investment interface. Begin
and consumption testing.
estimates.
Research Statistical Researched possible Research on possible
Discrepancy sources of statistical sources of statistical
discrepancy; improved discrepancy; improve
estimate of GDP and estimates of GDP and
gross domestic income GDI.
(GDI).
Convert Time Series Prepare requirement to
Package to “Fame” convert analysts’
“satellite” systems to
Fame. Begin
conversion.
Misreporting Contract with Census
Adjustments Bureau to conduct
Current Population
Survey (CPS) exact
match study of
taxpayer misreporting
and work with IRS to
update measures of
voluntary taxpayer
compliance.
Methodology Papers Completed updated Complete updated
methodology paper for methodology papers for
corporate profits. government, foreign
transactions, and new
paper for fixed
investment.
Reengineer Private Develop requirements
Capital Stock and rewrite programs.
Estimates
Reengineer Government Develop requirements
Capital Stock and rewrite programs.
Estimates
Revise Tables to Begin table redesign.
Deemphasize Chained
Dollars
Recognize Government Prepare proposal to
and Nonprofit Output recognize output.
Real Government and Develop simplified
Nonprofit-by-Function annual real
Estimates government-by-function
estimates.
Research to Revise Conduct research and
Summary Accounts prepare proposal to
revise summary
accounts.
Research Sector Conducted research on Conducted research on
Definitions government enterprises government enterprises
and other sector and other sector
issues. issues.
Research Conducted research on Conduct research on
Flow-of-Funds integrating NIPA’s integrating NIPA’s
Integration with flow-of-funds with flow-of-funds
accounts. accounts.
Research on Work with BLS to
Compensation in Kind research new forms of
fringe benefits, such
as cafeteria plans.
Research on Nonprofit Conduct research on
Sector status of separate
nonprofit accounts.
Research on Chain Wrote and presented Refine paper, prepare
Inventories Method research paper on proposal.
chain inventories
method.
Improve Capital Stock Worked with Chief Prepare proposals for
Estimates Economist to comprehensive
investigate service revision.
lives and other
capital stock issues.
Interactive User-
Defined Chain
Aggregates
Research Sector Gross Work with IED to
Output investigate
feasibility of timely
estimates of gross
output by sector.
Research NIPA/ Conduct study of
International differences; prepare
Transactions Accounts proposals as
(ITA’s) Differences appropriate.
Research Pension Worked with Regional Work with Regional
Benefits Directorate to Directorate to
research accounting research accounting
for pension benefits. for pension benefits.
Research Accrual Conduct research on
Accounting feasibility of moving
some estimates (for
example wages,
personal taxes) to
accrual basis.
Coordinate with
regional programs.
Research Government Conduct research on
Inventories redefining government
inventories as part
of gross investment;
prepare proposal for
comprehensive
revision.
Research Separate Conducted research on Prepare SURVEY article
State and Local preparing separate to report estimates.
Government Estimates estimates for State Coordinate with
governments and for regional program.
local governments.
Research on
Reconciling Estimates
of Defense Equipment
and Change in Private
Inventories
Research on PCE
Classifications
Research on Motor Conduct research
Vehicle Estimates toward improving motor
vehicle estimates.
Scanner Data for PCE Purchase scanner data
for improved,
timelier estimates of
merchandise
composition.
Research
Capitalization of
Movies, Sound
Recordings
Research Construction
in Progress as Change
in Inventories
Research Production
Account and Capital
Inputs
Research Consumer
Durables Satellite
Account
Programs 2003 2004
National Income and Prepare quarterly Prepare quarterly and
Product Accounts estimates of GDP 2003 comprehensive
(NIPA) Estimates tables; begin 2003 revision estimates of
comprehensive revision GDP and NIPA tables.
estimates.
Monthly Personal Prepare monthly Prepare monthly and
Income and Outlays estimates of personal 2003 comprehensive
income and outlays; revision estimates of
begin 2003 personal income and
comprehensive revision outlays.
estimates.
Fixed Assets and Prepare annual Prepare annual and
Consumer Durable estimates of fixed 2003 comprehensive
Goods assets and consumer revision estimates of
durable goods; begin fixed assets and
2003 comprehensive consumer durable
revision estimates. goods.
International Update NIPA estimates Prepare NIPA estimates
Submissions consistent with 1993 based on 2003
SNA for OECD. Prepare comprehensive revision
GFS for Treasury to consistent with 1993
submit to IMF. SNA for OECD. Prepare
GFS for Treasury to
submit to IMF.
NIH Research & Prepare estimates of Prepare estimates of
Development (R&D) R&D biomedical price R&D biomedical price
Biomedical Price index for NIH under index for NIH under
Index reimbursable contract. reimbursable contract.
New Initiatives
Implement North Prepare for conversion Publish comprehensive
American Industry of all income-side revision estimates on
Classification System estimates to NAICS a NAICS basis; convert
(NAICS) basis in comprehensive PPI source data from
revision. SIC to NAICS basis.
NIPA Central System Test and implement the Begin second phase,
Modernization first phase of the developing enhance-
new central system ments for new central
(joint with OCIO, system (joint with
contractor). OCIO, contractor).
Alternative Measures Update the measures. Update the measures.
of Saving
Interactive Web Data Complete Web data
Access access project.
Convert Table Complete automation of
Generation remaining tables.
New Quality-Adjusted Conduct research and Conduct research and
Prices develop new quality- develop new quality-
adjusted prices. adjusted prices. If
Submit proposals for proposals are
prices of nonresi- accepted, publish
dential structures, revised estimates.
photocopy equipment,
and other selected
prices.
Improved Services Conduct research and Conduct research and
Measures develop new measures develop new measures
of services. If of services. Publish
proposals are revised estimates.
accepted, prepare
estimates.
Improved Estimates of Conduct research and Conduct research and
Software Investment develop improved develop improved
software prices. software prices.
Employee Stock Conduct research and Conduct research and
Options develop estimating develop source data
methodology for for employee stock
employee stock options.
options.
Federal Investment Complete, test, and
and Consumption implement system
System before the end of
December 2002.
Research Statistical Research on possible Research on possible
Discrepancy sources of statistical sources of statistical
discrepancy; improve discrepancy; improve
estimates of GDP and estimates of GDP and
GDI. GDI.
Convert Time Series Complete pre-revision Prepare post-revision
Package to “Fame” conversions, testing, conversions.
and implementation.
Misreporting Work with IRS to Work with IRS to
Adjustments update measures of update measures of
voluntary taxpayer voluntary taxpayer
compliance. compliance.
Methodology Papers Update methodology Update methodology
papers. paper for PCE. New
methodology papers for
other components.
Reengineer Private Continue rewriting Test and implement
Capital Stock programs. programs.
Estimates
Reengineer Government Test and implement
Capital Stock programs.
Estimates
Revise Tables to Implement table Publish redesigned
Deemphasize Chained redesign. tables as part of
Dollars 2003 comprehensive
revision.
Recognize Government Implement proposal to Publish revised
and Nonprofit Output recognize output. estimates of GDP by
type of product.
Real Government and Implement simplified Work on development of
Nonprofit-by-Function real government-by- refinements and
Estimates function estimates. quarterly real
government-by-function
estimates.
Research to Revise If accepted, implement Publish revised
Summary Accounts proposal to revise summary accounts.
summary accounts.
Research Sector Conduct research on
Definitions government enterprises
and other sector
issues.
Research Publish preliminary Continue research on
Flow-of-Funds attempt to consolidate integrating NIPA’s
Integration NIPA’s with flow- with flow-of-funds
of-funds accounts. accounts.
Research on Consider proposals
Compensation in Kind based on research. If
accepted, implement
proposals.
Research on Nonprofit Develop new tables to Conduct additional
Sector show nonprofit research to fill gaps
expenditures and in nonprofit accounts.
economic activity.
Research on Chain If proposal is Publish revised
Inventories Method accepted, implement estimates of
proposal for chain inventories.
inventories method.
Improve Capital Stock If proposals are Publish revised
Estimates accepted, implement estimates of capital
proposals. stock. Develop new
research projects.
Interactive User- Prepare requirements
Defined Chain and write programs for
Aggregates user-defined chain
aggregates.
Research Sector Gross If feasible, submit If accepted, implement
Output proposal to prepare proposal and publish
estimates of sector estimates of sector
gross output. gross output.
Research NIPA/ If accepted, implement Publish revised
International proposals to resolve estimates.
Transactions Accounts differences between
(ITA’s) Differences NIPA’s and ITA’s.
Research Pension If research is Research estimates of
Benefits accepted, prepare and employers’
submit proposal for contributions to
changes in comprehen- deferred compensation
sive revision. plans.
Research Accrual If research is Publish revised
Accounting accepted, prepare and estimates.
submit proposal for
changes in comprehen-
sive revision.
Research Government If proposal is Publish revised
Inventories accepted, prepare estimates.
revised estimates.
Research Separate
State and Local
Government Estimates
Research on Conduct research on
Reconciling Estimates consistency of timing
of Defense Equipment for estimates of
and Change in Private defense equipment and
Inventories private inventories.
Research on PCE Conduct research on
Classifications PCE product and
type-of-expenditure
classifications
relative to other
government and
international
classifications.
Research on Motor Conclude research and Publish improved
Vehicle Estimates prepare estimates.
recommendations.
Scanner Data for PCE Research scanner data Prepare proposal for
and compile prototype implementing scanner
estimates. databased estimates.
Research
Capitalization of
Movies, Sound
Recordings
Research Construction
in Progress as Change
in Inventories
Research Production Conduct research on
Account and Capital measuring capital
Inputs inputs as part of a
production account.
Research Consumer Work with Chief
Durables Satellite Economist to conduct
Account research on
implementing a
satellite account.
Programs 2005
National Income and Prepare quarterly and annual
Product Accounts estimates of GDP and NIPA
(NIPA) Estimates tables; publish NIPA volumes.
Monthly Personal Prepare monthly estimates of
Income and Outlays personal income and outlays.
Fixed Assets and Prepare annual estimates of
Consumer Durable fixed assets and consumer
Goods durable goods; publish Fixed
Assets volume.
International Update NIPA estimates
Submissions consistent with 1993 SNA for
OECD. Prepare GFS for
Treasury to submit to IMF.
NIH Research & Prepare estimates and introduce
Development (R&D) chain weighting of R&D
Biomedical Price biomedical price index for NIH
Index under reimbursable contract.
New Initiatives
Implement North Prepare for conversions
American Industry associated with NAICS 2002,
Classification System NAICS 2007, and North
(NAICS) American Product
Classification System.
NIPA Central System Test and implement the second
Modernization phase (joint with OCIO,
contractor).
Alternative Measures Update the measures.
of Saving
Interactive Web Data
Access
Convert Table
Generation
New Quality-Adjusted Conduct research and develop
Prices new quality-adjusted prices.
Improved Services Conduct research and develop
Measures new measures of services.
Improved Estimates of Conduct research and develop
Software Investment improved measures of foreign
transactions in software.
Employee Stock Conduct research and develop
Options estimates for employee stock
options.
Federal Investment
and Consumption
System
Research Statistical Research on possible sources of
Discrepancy statistical discrepancy; improve
estimates of GDP and GDI.
Convert Time Series Complete all revision
Package to “Fame” conversions, testing, and
implementation.
Misreporting Contract with Census Bureau to
Adjustments conduct CPS exact match study
of taxpayer misreporting and
work with IRS to update
measures of voluntary taxpayer
compliance.
Methodology Papers Annual updates of all
methodology papers.
Reengineer Private
Capital Stock
Estimates
Reengineer Government
Capital Stock
Estimates
Revise Tables to
Deemphasize Chained
Dollars
Recognize Government
and Nonprofit Output
Real Government and Work on development of
Nonprofit-by-Function nonprofit-by-function
Estimates estimates.
Research to Revise
Summary Accounts
Research Sector Prepare proposals to modernize
Definitions sector definitions of
government enterprises and
noncorporate business.
Research Publish improved integrated
Flow-of-Funds accounts.
Integration
Research on
Compensation in Kind
Research on Nonprofit Publish prototype nonprofit
Sector accounts.
Research on Chain
Inventories Method
Improve Capital Stock Conduct research on capital
Estimates stock issues.
Interactive User- Test and implement programs.
Defined Chain
Aggregates
Research Sector Gross
Output
Research NIPA/
International
Transactions Accounts
(ITA’s) Differences
Research Pension Developed improved estimates of
Benefits employers’ contributions to
deferred compensation plans.
Research Accrual
Accounting
Research Government
Inventories
Research Separate
State and Local
Government Estimates
Research on If research finds inconsistencies,
Reconciling Estimates prepare proposal to improve
of Defense Equipment estimates.
and Change in Private
Inventories
Research on PCE Conclude research and prepare
Classifications recommendations.
Research on Motor
Vehicle Estimates
Scanner Data for PCE If proposal is accepted, prepare
and publish estimates.
Research Conduct research on
Capitalization of recognizing production of
Movies, Sound motion pictures and sound
Recordings recordings as fixed investment.
Research Construction Conduct research on classifying
in Progress as Change construction in progress as
in Inventories change in inventories.
Research Production Continue research on
Account and Capital measuring capital inputs as part
Inputs of a production account.
Research Consumer Conduct research on
Durables Satellite implementing a satellite
Account account.
INDUSTRY ACCOUNTS
Programs and New Initiatives: FY 2001-2005
Programs 2001 2002
Benchmark Input- Initial estimates Review estimates for
Output (I-O) Accounts completed for 1997 Benchmark I-O
1997 Benchmark I-O Accounts and reconcile
tables on a NAICS with national accounts
basis. and balance of
payments accounts;
publish 1997 Benchmark
I-O tables.
GDP-by-Industry Estimates completed Publish GDP-by-
Accounts for GDP-by-Industry Industry Accounts for
Accounts for 2000. 2000; prepare GDP-by-
Industry Accounts for
2001
Annual I-O Accounts Estimates completed Publish Annual I-O
for Annual I-O Accounts for 1998;
Accounts for 1998. prepare estimates for
1999 Annual I-O
Accounts.
Implement NAICS Software developed and Convert 1999-2001
1998-2000 source data source data from NAICS
converted from NAICS to SIC basis for use
to SIC basis for use in annual programs.
in annual programs.
Foreign Trade Estimates prepared for Prepare monthly
Estimates monthly merchandise estimates of
exports and imports; merchandise exports
concordance maintained and imports; begin
between Harmonized conversion of
System (HS) and I-O concordance between HS
classifications. and I-O classifica-
tions from SIC to
NAICS basis.
International Estimates completed Prepare SNA-based,
Submissions for SNA-based, GDP-by- GDP-by-Industry
Industry Accounts for Accounts for
1987-99. 1998-2000.
IT Re-engineering Enhanced software Release new software
designed and developed for accessing I-O data
for accessing I-O data interactively from BEA
interactively from BEA Web site; design and
Web site; additional develop additional
software developed and web-based tools for
brought on-line for the analysis of I-O
benchmark I-O and GDP- data; complete
by-industry production benchmark I-O
processing systems. production processing
system.
New Initiatives
Accelerated Annual Research initiated for Prepare data files and
I-O Accounts the accelerated develop processing
release of Annual I-O system for accelerated
Accounts. release of Annual I-O
Accounts.
Accelerated GDP-by- Research initiated for Release pilot advance
Industry Accounts the accelerated estimates of 2001
release of GDP-by- GDP-by-Industry
Industry Accounts. Accounts in April (4
months from end of
year).
Accelerated Gross Research initiated, in
State Product (GSP) coordination with the
Accounts Regional program, for
the accelerated
release of GSP
Accounts.
Improved Gross Output Coordinate with NIWD
for Selected Services on the identification
(GDP-by-Industry) and prioritization of
service areas needing
improvement.
Investigate and
Implement Method to
Produce Benchmark I-O
Accounts with Less
Detailed Data
Re-engineering for
Data Transfer Between
Census and BEA
Review and Partially Bring estimates of
Reconcile Industry value added from the
Value Added for 1997 I-O and GDP-by-
Benchmark I-O GDP-by- Industry Accounts into
Industry Accounts closer alignment; as
part of final review
of 1997 Benchmark I-O
Accounts, compare with
estimates from GDP by
Industry.
Improved Consistency
of I-O, GDP-by-
Industry, and GSP
Estimates
NAICS-Based 1992
Benchmark I-O
Accounts
NAICS-Based GDP-by-
Industry Accounts,
1992-99
Review and Research Initiate research to
to Improve Legacy evaluate the quality
Estimating Rules Used of the estimating
for Benchmark I-O rules used to prepare
Accounts the Benchmark I-O
Accounts; prioritize
areas for additional
research.
Review and Reconcile With the Chief Work with the Chief
Gross Output with Economist, initiated Economist to identify
Comparable BLS research to identify differences between
Measures differences between BEA and BLS measures
BEA and BLS measures of nominal and real
of nominal and real gross output of
gross output of nonmanufacturing
nonmanufacturing industries.
industries.
Travel and Tourism With external funding, Dependent upon the
Satellite Accounts completed research to continuation of
and E-commerce improve estimation of external funding,
Satellite Accounts Travel and Tourism produce Travel and
Satellite Accounts. Tourism Satellite
Accounts; investigate
support for e-commerce
accounts.
Programs 2003 2004
Benchmark Input- Publish detailed data See Benchmark I-O with
Output (I-O) Accounts and documentation for less detailed data
the 1997 Benchmark I-O below.
Accounts; prepare and
publish the 1997
Capital Flow tables.
GDP-by-Industry Publish GDP-by- Publish revised GDP-
Accounts Industry Accounts for by-Industry Accounts
2001; prepare revised consistent with 1997
GDP-by-Industry Benchmark I-O and
Accounts consistent revised NIPA’s,
with 1997 Benchmark 1947-2002; prepare
I-O and revised NIPA’s GDP-by-Industry
for 2002. Accounts for 2003.
Annual I-O Accounts Publish Annual I-O Publish NAICS-based
Accounts for 1999; Annual I-O Accounts
revise Annual I-O for 2000, consistent
framework to be with 1997 Benchmark
consistent with 1997 I-O Accounts and
Benchmark I-O Accounts revised NIPA’s;
and revised NIPA’s. prepare estimates for
2001 Annual I-O
Accounts.
Implement NAICS Develop software and
revise data files for
annual programs to
NAICS-based source
data; prepare for
conversion to NAICS in
public data files.
Foreign Trade Prepare monthly Prepare monthly
Estimates estimates of estimates of
merchandise exports merchandise exports
and imports; complete and imports; maintain
conversion of concordance between HS
concordance between HS and I-O classi-
and I-O classifica- fications.
tions to a NAICS
basis.
International Prepare SNA-based, Develop procedures and
Submissions GDP-by-Industry software to prepare
Accounts for SNA-based, GDP-by-
1999-2001. Industry Accounts on
a NAICS basis.
IT Re-engineering Release expanded Prepare modifications
software with new of benchmark I-O
analytical tools for production processing
accessing and system to incorporate
manipulating I-O data data from the 2002
from BEA Web site; economic census.
modify further the
web-based system to
include NAICS-based
I-O data; modify
annual I-O and
GDP-by-industry
production processing
systems for NAICS-
based data.
New Initiatives
Accelerated Annual Develop pilot set of Publish Annual I-O
I-O Accounts tables for 2001 Annual Accounts for 2002.
I-O Accounts.
Accelerated GDP-by- Publish advance 2002 Publish advance 2003
Industry Accounts GDP-by-Industry GDP-by-Industry
Accounts. Accounts.
Accelerated Gross Coordinate with the Coordinate with the
State Product (GSP) Regional program on Regional program on
Accounts the development of the implementation of
software needed for accelerated release of
the accelerated GSP Accounts.
release of GSP
Accounts.
Improved Gross Output Coordinate with NIWD Coordinate with NIWD
for Selected Services on the preparation of on the implementation
(GDP-by-Industry) short papers of improvements to
describing potential measures of output,
improvements to the prices, and quantities
services areas. for selected services.
Investigate and Conduct research on Evaluate alternative
Implement Method to ways to simplify proposals for
Produce Benchmark I-O production of simplifying production
Accounts with Less Benchmark I-O Accounts of Benchmark I-O
Detailed Data and to increase Accounts and
efficient use of increasing efficient
source data; work to use of source data;
be contracted. implement
recommendations.
Re-engineering for Prepare requirements
Data Transfer Between analysis for direct
Census and BEA transfer of economic
data between Census
and IED, using
standardized coding
and formats.
Review and Partially Evaluate remaining
Reconcile Industry differences between
Value Added for 1997 value added from the
Benchmark I-O GDP-by- I-O Accounts and GDP-
Industry Accounts by-Industry Accounts;
compare data on
compensation from BLS
and Census; conduct
research on other
differences; document
findings and make
recommendations.
Improved Consistency Coordinate with the Conduct research to
of I-O, GDP-by- Regional program to improve consistency of
Industry, and GSP identify differences industry gross output
Estimates in data sources, and value added
estimating methods, estimates from the
definitions, and I-O, GDP-by-Industry,
classification and GSP Accounts;
conventions that document findings and
result in make recommendations.
inconsistencies of
estimates from the
I-O, GDP-by-Industry,
and GSP Accounts.
NAICS-Based 1992 Initiate work to Complete work to
Benchmark I-O recast 1992 Benchmark recast 1992 Benchmark
Accounts I-O Accounts from SIC I-O Accounts from SIC
to NAICS basis to give to NAICS basis to give
users means to produce users means to produce
time series; research time series; research
and implementation to and implementation to
be supported by be supported by
contractor. contractor.
NAICS-Based GDP-by-
Industry Accounts,
1992-99
Review and Research Conduct research to Complete research to
to Improve Legacy validate or improve validate or improve
Estimating Rules Used methods determined to methods determined to
for Benchmark I-O have a significant have a significant
Accounts impact on accuracy of impact on accuracy of
the accounts; prepare the accounts; complete
short papers on the preparation of
findings. short papers on
findings; make
recommendations.
Review and Reconcile Work with the Chief Work with the Chief
Gross Output with Economist to identify Economist to prepare
Comparable BLS and reconcile short papers that
Measures differences between document and explain
BEA and BLS measures the major differences
of nominal and real between manufacturing
gross output of and nonmanufacturing
manufacturing and measures.
nonmanufacturing
industries; prepare
short papers that
document and explain
the major differences
between manufacturing
and nonmanufacturing
measures.
Travel and Tourism Dependent upon Dependent upon
Satellite Accounts external funding, external funding,
and E-commerce produce Travel and produce Travel and
Satellite Accounts Tourism Satellite Tourism Satellite
Accounts; investigate Accounts; investigate
support for e-commerce support for e-commerce
accounts. accounts.
Programs 2005
Benchmark Input- See Benchmark I-O with less
Output (I-O) Accounts detailed data below.
GDP-by-Industry Publish GDP-by-Industry
Accounts Accounts for 2003; prepare
GDP-by-Industry Accounts for
2004.
Annual I-O Accounts Publish Annual I-O Accounts
for 2001; prepare estimates for
2002 Annual I-O Accounts.
Implement NAICS
Foreign Trade Prepare monthly estimates of
Estimates merchandise exports and
imports; maintain concordance
between HS and I-O
classifications.
International Prepare SNA-based, GDP-by-
Submissions Industry Accounts consistent
with the comprehensive
revision of the Accounts.
IT Re-engineering Complete modifications to
benchmark I-O production
processing system.
New Initiatives
Accelerated Annual Publish Annual I-O Accounts
I-O Accounts for 2003.
Accelerated GDP-by- Publish advance 2004 GDP-by-
Industry Accounts Industry Accounts.
Accelerated Gross
State Product (GSP)
Accounts
Improved Gross Output
for Selected Services
(GDP-by-Industry)
Investigate and
Implement Method to
Produce Benchmark I-O
Accounts with Less
Detailed Data
Re-engineering for Test and implement the new
Data Transfer Between process for transferring
Census and BEA economic data from Census to
IED, using standardized coding
and formats.
Review and Partially
Reconcile Industry
Value Added for 1997
Benchmark I-O GDP-by-
Industry Accounts
Improved Consistency Implement recommendations
of I-O, GDP-by- for improving consistency of
Industry, and GSP industry gross output and value
Estimates added estimates from the I-O,
GDP-by-Industry, and GSP
Accounts.
NAICS-Based 1992
Benchmark I-O
Accounts
NAICS-Based GDP-by- Backcast GDP-by-Industry
Industry Accounts, Accounts, 1992-99, from SIC to
1992-99 NAICS; research and
implementation to be
supported by contractor.
Review and Research Implement
to Improve Legacy recommendations.
Estimating Rules Used
for Benchmark I-O
Accounts
Review and Reconcile Work with the Chief Economist
Gross Output with to prepare short papers that
Comparable BLS document and explain the
Measures major differences between
manufacturing and
nonmanufacturing measures.
Travel and Tourism Dependent upon external
Satellite Accounts funding, produce Travel and
and E-commerce Tourism Satellite Accounts;
Satellite Accounts investigate support for
e-commerce accounts.
INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTS
Programs and New Initiatives: FY 2001-2005
Programs 2001 2002
Balance of Payments Prepared estimates for Prepare estimates for
(BOP) Accounts the BOP accounts. the BOP accounts.
International Prepared annual Prepare annual
Investment Position estimates of the the estimates of the IIP.
(IIP) Estimates IIP.
Benchmark and Annual Prepared F&O Prepare F&O estimates.
Financial and estimates.
Operating (F&O) Data
Analyses and Articles Prepared standard and Prepare standard and
special articles and special articles and
analyses. analyses.
New Initiatives
Research Conducted research Conduct additional
Understatement of into existence of research and determine
Goods Trade Estimates undercounts in feasibility of
and Develop Bias reported imports or developing an
Adjustment exports. adjustment for NIPA
(but not for BOP)
purposes.
Accelerate Monthly With Census Perform research into
Estimates of U.S. cooperation, developed developing accelerated
Trade in Goods and an implementation plan estimation methods for
Services and schedule. direct investment and
unaffiliated services.
Derivatives Worked with members of Clear the survey
the Treasury inter- through OMB.
national capital (TIC)
user group to design a
quarterly survey.
NAICS Publish NAICS-based
estimates for position
and flows for Foreign
direct investment in
the United States
(FDIUS); and for
operations data from
1999 benchmark survey
of U.S. Direct
investment abroad
(USDIA).
Imrove Web Site For BPD, began For BPD, complete
development of Web development of Web
sites for all BOP data site. For direct
series. investment data, re-
design user interface
of Web page; begin re-
engineering of table
production system and
reformatting of
historical data.
Utilize Stratified Investigate feasi-
Sampling bility of using
stratified sampling in
annual survey of
FDIUS.
Quarterly Services Design quarterly
Surveys services survey and
redesign annual
services surveys to be
integrated with
quarterly survey.
Improve Estimates of Performed research Add short-term
Short-Term Financial into feasibility of financial instruments
Instruments adding short-term to TIC survey of
instruments to TIC securities claims.
surveys.
Institute More Worked with Treasury Develop estimation
Frequent Surveys of to develop annual routines and
Portfolio Investment surveys of securities procedures to in-
Assets and liabilities. corporate the results
Liabilities of the annual
liability surveys in
the accounts. Continue
conducting the annual
liability survey. Work
with Treasury to
design the annual
asset survey that
would cover 2003 and
later years.
Update Estimation Reviewed and updated Review and update
Methods estimation of quarterly direct
quarterly direct investment distributed
investment earnings, earnings.
with particular
attention to treatment
of negative earnings.
Expand Services Data Redesigned benchmark Conduct redesigned
Collection (Excluding survey of selected benchmark survey; use
Quarterly Surveys) services to improve preliminary results to
coverage of the update annual survey
following categories: to cover important new
Trade-related, services, including
auxiliary insurance, e-commerce-related.
waste treatment,
e-commerce-related,
and other.
Prepare Additional Worked with outside Prepare an article on
Special Studies researchers to analyze U.S. intra-firm trade
global expansion in goods; extend
strategies of U.S. analysis of propensity
firms; undertook of foreign manu-
analysis of propensity facturing affiliates
of foreign manu- to source inputs from
facturing affiliates their U.S. parents.
to source inputs from
their U.S. parents.
Update Statistical Performed research Develop revised
Methods in Light of into areas of estimates of insurance
International deviation from inter- services based on
Statistical Standards national standards; average claims;
identified all major perform research into
existing differences. estimating implicit
financial services
and, as appropriate,
other implicit
services.
Electronic Data Implemented Automated Implement ASTAR on
Collection Survey Transmittal and annual surveys of
Retrieval (ASTAR) transportation,
system on quarterly remittances, and
survey of FDIUS. financial services.
Programs 2003 2004
Balance of Payments Prepare estimates for Prepare estimates for
(BOP) Accounts the BOP accounts. the BOP accounts.
International Prepare annual Prepare annual
Investment Position estimates of the IIP. estimates of the IIP.
(IIP) Estimates
Benchmark and Annual Prepare F&O estimates. Prepare F&O estimates.
Financial and
Operating (F&O) Data
Analyses and Articles Prepare standard and Prepare standard and
special articles and special articles and
analyses. analyses.
New Initiatives
Research Collaborate with If the decision is to
Understatement of Census Bureau on implement a bias
Goods Trade Estimates whether to extend the adjustment to the
and Develop Bias NIPA bias adjustment goods and services
Adjustment (if made) to the goods release, implement it
and services release. this year.
Accelerate Monthly Work with Census to Begin issuing the
Estimates of U.S. develop methods of joint monthly press
Trade in Goods and filling any “holes” in release on an
Services the goods estimates accelerated basis.
(possibly including Monitor revisions in
goods exports to the services
Canada) that may estimates, and, where
hinder acceleration. the estimates are
weakest, perform
research into
improving them.
Derivatives Conduct the quarterly Continue to conduct
survey. the quarterly survey,
and include the data
in the BOP accounts.
NAICS Publish NAICS-based Publish NAICS-based
estimates from annual estimates for position
survey of USDIA; and flows for USDIA.
incorporate NAICS 2002
revisions in FDIUS
operations data.
Imrove Web Site For direct investment, For direct investment
complete development data, complete re-
of Web site; continue engineering of table
re-engineering of production system and
table production reformatting of
system and re- historical data.
formatting of
historical data.
Utilize Stratified If feasible, in- If feasible, use
Sampling corporate stratified stratified sampling to
sampling in design of conduct annual survey
annual survey of of FDIUS covering
FDIUS. 2003.
Quarterly Services Clear new and re- Implement quarterly
Surveys designed surveys; services survey in the
develop estimation first quarter of
routines and 2004.
processing systems
for quarterly surveys.
Improve Estimates of Incorporate into Add short-term
Short-Term Financial accounts estimates of financial instruments
Instruments short-term financial to TIC survey of
claims from TIC securities liabilities
survey. and incorporate
estimates into the
accounts.
Institute More Continue conducting Conduct annual
Frequent Surveys of and incorporating into portfolio investment
Portfolio Investment the accounts the surveys of both
Assets and results of the annual assets and liabilities
Liabilities liability surveys. and incorporate their
Continue working with results into the
Treasury to design the accounts.
annual asset survey,
covering 2003 and
later years.
Update Estimation Review and update
Methods estimation methods for
other BOP flow
accounts.
Expand Services Data Conduct updated annual Redesign benchmark
Collection (Excluding survey; publish final survey of financial
Quarterly Surveys) benchmark survey services as needed to
results; continue close any gaps and
research on e-commerce ensure coverage of new
transactions. services; continue
research on e-commerce
transactions.
Prepare Additional Prepare and publish Prepare and publish
Special Studies special studies to special studies to
broaden understanding broaden understanding
and extend analysis of and extend analysis of
data of the Inter- data of the Inter-
national Economics national Economics
Directorate. Directorate.
Update Statistical Incorporate revised Perform additional
Methods in Light of estimates of insurance research into areas of
International services into inter- deviation from inter-
Statistical Standards national transactions national standards
accounts; make (focusing on new
progress to resolve standards that may be
other major emanating from the
differences. Special Data Dis-
semination Standards
(SDDS) and inter-
national services
areas). Also, identify
areas where new
guidance may be forth-
coming in a new
Balance of Payments
Manual (BPM6) and
consider the
feasibility and
advisability of
adopting the new
standards for the U.S.
international
accounts.
Electronic Data Implement ASTAR on Implement ASTAR on
Collection benchmark and new annual survey of
investment surveys of FDIUS.
FDIUS and on annual
surveys of
construction,
insurance, royalties
and license fees, and
selected services.
Programs 2005
Balance of Payments Prepare estimates for the BOP
(BOP) Accounts accounts.
International Prepare annual estimates of the
Investment Position IIP.
(IIP) Estimates
Benchmark and Annual Prepare F&O estimates.
Financial and
Operating (F&O) Data
Analyses and Articles Prepare standard and special
articles and analyses.
New Initiatives
Research Continue to make bias
Understatement of adjustments, if appropriate.
Goods Trade Estimates
and Develop Bias
Adjustment
Accelerate Monthly Continue issuing the monthly
Estimates of U.S. release on an accelerated basis,
Trade in Goods and and continue performing any
Services needed research into improving
the accelerated estimates.
Derivatives Continue to conduct the
quarterly survey, and include
the data in the BOP accounts.
NAICS Incorporate NAICS 2002
revisions in USDIA operations
data.
Imrove Web Site Review and re-evaluate Web
site, to ensure it effectively
meets users’ needs.
Utilize Stratified Investigate feasibility of using
Sampling stratified sampling in annual
survey of USDIA.
Quarterly Services Continue to conduct quarterly
Surveys services survey; consider
expanding quarterly coverage to
additional categories of
services.
Improve Estimates of Continue incorporating the
Short-Term Financial estimates of inbound and
Instruments outbound short-term
instruments in the accounts.
Institute More Conduct annual portfolio
Frequent Surveys of investment surveys of both
Portfolio Investment assets and liabilities and
Assets and incorporate their results into
Liabilities the accounts.
Update Estimation
Methods
Expand Services Data Conduct redesigned benchmark
Collection (Excluding survey of financial services;
Quarterly Surveys) continue research on
e-commerce transactions.
Prepare Additional Prepare and publish special
Special Studies studies to broaden
understanding and extend
analysis of data of the
International Economics
Directorate.
Update Statistical Make progress in resolving all
Methods in Light of significant differences.
International
Statistical Standards
Electronic Data Implement ASTAR on
Collection benchmark survey of USDIA
and benchmark survey of
financial services.
REGIONAL ACCOUNTS
Programs and New Initiatives: FY 2001-2005
Programs 2001 2002
Annual/Benchmark Prepared SPI on SIC Prepare SPI (in
State Personal basis. September 2002) with
Income (SPI) NAICS 2002 industries
Including Disposable for the year 2001 with
SPI no overlap with SIC.
Annual/Benchmark GSP Prepared annual 1999 Prepare annual 2000
GSP estimates on SIC GSP estimates on SIC
basis. basis.
Quarterly SPI Prepared quarterly SPI Prepare quarterly SPI
estimates with SIC estimates with SIC
industries. industries.
Annual and Benchmark Prepared LAPI Prepare LAPI estimates
Local Area Personal estimates on SIC on SIC basis.
Income (LAPI) basis.
Regional Input-Output Evaluated feasibility Incorporate 1998
Multipliers of using annual I-O national annual table
tables in Regional into RIMS.
Industrial Multiplier
System (RIMS).
Implement NAICS- Converted annual Convert ASM, sales
Regional Program survey of manufactures tax, and BLS data from
(ASM) from NAICS to NAICS to SIC for GSP.
SIC. Prepare SPI on NAICS
basis.
New Initiatives
Accelerate Begin research on
Metropolitan Area acceleration of MAPI.
Personal Income
(MAPI)
Accelerate GSP Begin research on
acceleration of GSP.
Accelerate Country-
Level Personal Income
Implement Results of Investigate with BLS
Stock Options whether stock options
Research and other forms of
compensation are
consistently covered
in state ES-202 wage
data.
Prepare State Capital Began research on Experimental estimates
Stocks estimating State of public sector and
capital stock. manufacturing capital
stocks.
Prepare Pensions Continue research into
Received by State producing pension
distributions by
State. Develop test
estimates of pension
distributions by
State. Coordinate
results within BEA.
Interagency Work– Selected new person as Continue ECPC work on
NAICS, North American Economic Classi- NAICS 2002, NAICS
Product Classi- fication Policy 2007, and NAPCS.
fication System Committee (ECPC) Evaluate ACS early
(NAPCS), American member. Continued results.
Community Survey staff support. Began
(ACS) NAPCS committee work.
Represented BEA on ACS
interagency
committees.
Bottom-up Estimate of
State and Local Taxes
Bottom-up Estimate of
Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families
(TANF) Components
Improve Consistency
of I-O, GDP, and GSSP
Programs 2003 2004
Annual/Benchmark Prepare SPI with NAICS Prepare SPI with NAICS
State Personal 2002 industries. 2002 industries.
Income (SPI) Prepare comprehensive
Including Disposable revisions.
SPI
Annual/Benchmark GSP Prepare annual 2001 Prepare benchmark 2002
GSP estimates on SIC GSP estimates on NAICS
basis. basis with SIC overlap
reference year 2002.
Quarterly SPI Prepare quarterly SPI Prepare quarterly SPI
with NAICS 2002 with NAICS 2002
industries for 2001 industries. Prepare
and 2002 with no comprehensive
overlap. revisions.
Annual and Benchmark Prepare LAPI with Prepare LAPI with
Local Area Personal NAICS 2002 industries NAICS 2002 industries.
Income (LAPI) for 2001 with no Prepare comprehensive
overlap with SIC revisions.
industries.
Regional Input-Output Convert to NAICS Prepare multipliers on
Multipliers (conversion by IED NAICS basis.
and REMD are
prerequisites).
Incorporate 1999
national annual I-O
table into RIMS.
Implement NAICS- Convert all GSP source Implement NAICS with
Regional Program data from NAICS to 2002 as the NAICS/SIC
SIC. Prepare GSP overlap year for GSP.
estimation programs
for conversion to
NAICS. Prepare local
area personal income
on NAICS basis
New Initiatives
Accelerate Document source data Prepare data files and
Metropolitan Area schedules and develop and test
Personal Income establish partnerships estimation software to
(MAPI) with source data produce preliminary
agencies to accelerate annual MAPI.
data availability. Investigate disposable
MAPI.
Accelerate GSP Prepare data files and Implement advance
develop estimation estimates for 2003
software. Produce total GSP. Produce
advance total GSP for experimental advance
reference year 2002. industry estimates of
GSP for 1-digit
industries.
Accelerate Country- Begin research on Document source data
Level Personal Income acceleration of schedules and
country-level personal establish partnerships
income. with source data
agencies to accelerate
data availability.
Begin work to identify
new computer processes
to reduce processing
time frame. Initiate
research into revised
BEA economic areas.
Implement Results of Begin research with Implement procedures
Stock Options BLS to develop ways to to estimate items that
Research identify and estimate are not recorded in
items that are not the ES-202 wage data
recorded in the ES-202 for selected states.
wage data for selected
states.
Prepare State Capital Experimental estimates Experimental estimates
Stocks of nonmanufacturing of capital stocks
capital stocks. using IRS asset data.
Prepare Pensions Release addendum table Investigate alter-
Received by State to SPI, removing native data sources to
pension contributions get more precise
and savings currently estimates of the
included in personal receipt of pension
income and adding income by geography.
pension distributions
to individuals.
Continue research into
what should be
included as pension
distributions.
Coordinate results
within BEA. If
research results
acceptable, prepare
proposal for change in
comprehensive
revision.
Interagency Work– Research use of ACS Evaluate ACS results
NAICS, North American results on a regular as basis for journey-
Product Classi- basis. Continue ECPC to-work estimates.
fication System staff work. Continue ECPC staff
(NAPCS), American work.
Community Survey
(ACS)
Bottom-up Estimate of Investigate the If data exits, develop
State and Local Taxes feasibility of methodology, database,
producing bottom-up and estimation
estimates of property software and produce
taxes by industry. experimental estimates
Review available of property taxes by
source data. Contact State and industry
State representatives derived from State
for information on source data.
unpublished source
data. If data exits, develop
methodology, database,
Investigate the and estimation
feasibility of software and produce
producing bottom-up experimental estimates
estimates of local of local government
government personal taxes by State derived
taxes. Review from State source
available source data.
data. Contact State
representatives for
information on un-
published source data.
Bottom-up Estimate of Conduct research to Evaluate State program
Temporary Assistance identify State maintenance of effort
for Needy Families programs used in data for definitional
(TANF) Components maintenance-of-effort differences and adjust
reports by States to accordingly. Document
TANF. Coordinate results and coordinate
results within BEA. efforts within BEA.
Improve Consistency Consult with represen- Develop data and
of I-O, GDP, and GSSP tatives from IED and computer software
NIWD on issues related needed to implement
to improving consis- changes. Produce
tency between State preliminary GSP
and national estimates estimates based on
of value added by consistency
industry. improvements.
Programs 2005
Annual/Benchmark Prepare SPI with NAICS 2002
State Personal industries. Complete
Income (SPI) comprehensive revisions.
Including Disposable
SPI
Annual/Benchmark GSP Prepare annual 2003 GSP
estimates on NAICS basis only.
Quarterly SPI Prepare quarterly SPI with
NAICS 2002 industries.
Complete comprehensive
revisions.
Annual and Benchmark Prepare LAPI with NAICS 2002
Local Area Personal industries. Complete
Income (LAPI) comprehensive revisions.
Regional Input-Output Incorporate commodity flow
Multipliers survey estimates.
Implement NAICS- GSP estimates on NAICS basis.
Regional Program
New Initiatives
Accelerate Produce and release accelerated
Metropolitan Area estimates of preliminary annual
Personal Income MAPI. Continue investigation
(MAPI) of disposable MAPI.
Accelerate GSP Implement advance 2003 GSP
for total and 1-digit industries.
Begin investigating bottom-up
estimates of metropolitan
statistical area and BEA
economic area gross product.
Accelerate Country- Work on new sources and
Level Personal Income methods for producing selected
components of personal
income. Identify new computer
processes to reduce processing
time frame. Develop new BEA
economic areas.
Implement Results of Produce regular estimates of
Stock Options items that are not recorded in
Research ES-202 wage data.
Prepare State Capital Evaluation of experimental
Stocks capital stock estimates.
Prepare Pensions Produce regular estimates of
Received by State pensions received by geography.
Interagency Work– Continue ECPC staff work on
NAICS, North American NAICS and NAPCS.
Product Classi-
fication System
(NAPCS), American
Community Survey
(ACS)
Bottom-up Estimate of Implement bottom-up
State and Local Taxes estimates of property taxes by
State and industry.
Implement bottom-up
estimates of local government
taxes by State.
Bottom-up Estimate of Evaluate potential of regular
Temporary Assistance bottom-up estimates of TANF
for Needy Families components.
(TANF) Components
Improve Consistency Implement changes into the
of I-O, GDP, and GSSP GSP estimates that are
consistent with improvements
made in the national GDP-by-
industry and I-O estimates.
SOURCE DATA IMPROVEMENT
Programs and New Initiatives: FY 2001-2005
Programs 2001 2002
Expansion of Meetings with BLS Continue discussions
Coverage of BLS about expanding the with BLS about
Current Employment definition of income expanding definition
Survey (CES) 790 to cover all earnings to all employees’
Program and wages with a BLS hours and earnings
tentative target date concept.
for completion of
2005.
Improve Timeliness of Discussed need to Continue to work with
BLS 202 Program improve timeliness of BLS as they work with
202 employment and the State reporters to
wage data. improve timeliness of
the BLS 202 program.
Work with the Bureau Worked with Census Work with Census’s
of the Census to staff to expand the Manufacturing and
Improve Data Quality detail expenses Construction Division
and Timeliness and to collected for 2002 staff to add expense
Expand the Number of Business Expenditures items to the 2002
Intermediate Inputs Survey, and Economic Census forms
Collected by Industry Auxiliaries in the for mining,
Economic Census. manufacturing, and
construction.
Expand Other Economic Working with Census’s Work with Census’s
Census and Survey Governments Division Governments Division
Programs to set BEA data to set BEA data
priorities while they priorities.
“retool” their
processing system Continue working with
resulted in improved Census to expand SAS.
timeliness and quality
of data.
Worked with Census to
expand Service Annual
Survey (SAS).
Programs 2003 2004
Expansion of Continue discussions Continue discussions
Coverage of BLS with BLS about with BLS about
Current Employment expanding definition expanding definition
Survey (CES) 790 to all employees’ to all employees’
Program hours and earnings hours and earnings
concept. Explore the concept.
impact of CES
probability sample
design on revisions to
BEA wage and salary
estimates.
Improve Timeliness of Continue to work with Continue to work with
BLS 202 Program BLS to improve time- BLS to improve time-
liness, which will liness, which will
result in more timely result in more timely
release of quarterly release of quarterly
SPI and annual LAPI. SPI and annual LAPI.
Work with the Bureau Hold meetings with Begin review of initial
of the Census to Census divisions to data releases from 2002
Improve Data Quality discuss progress of Economic Census to get
and Timeliness and to 2002 Economic Census early indication of
Expand the Number of and potential requests impact on our
Intermediate Inputs for new special programs.
Collected by Industry tabulations as needed.
Expand Other Economic Work with Census’s Work with Census’s
Census and Survey Governments Division Governments Division
Programs to set BEA data to set BEA data
priorities. priorities.
Continue working with Continue working with
Census to expand SAS. Census to expand SAS.
Programs 2005
Expansion of Begin integration of BLS
Coverage of BLS expansion of CES to all
Current Employment employees’ hours and earnings
Survey (CES) 790 concept.
Program
Improve Timeliness of Continue to work with BLS to
BLS 202 Program improve timeliness, which will
result in more timely release of
quarterly SPI and annual LAPI.
Work with the Bureau Begin work with Census on
of the Census to questionnaire review for the
Improve Data Quality 2007 Economic Census to
and Timeliness and to ensure our data needs are
Expand the Number of communicated.
Intermediate Inputs
Collected by Industry
Expand Other Economic Work with Census’s
Census and Survey Governments Division to set
Programs BEA data priorities.
Continue working with Census
to expand SAS.
MANAGEMENT
Programs and New Initiatives: FY 2001-2005
Programs 2001 2002
Recruit, Develop and Evaluated effective- Increase effectiveness
Retain a High- ness of employment of recruitment and
Quality, Diverse practices and training retention through use
Workforce program. of supplemental
programs. Develop
comprehensive work-
force training
programs to include a
BEA new employee
orientation program.
Conduct employee
survey, publish, and
act on results.
Examine impact of
anticipated
retirements.
Know, Understand, and Increased outreach Begin redesign of Web
Respond Better to efforts to all site. Conduct customer
Customers, Partners, customers, stake- survey. Identify
and Survey holders, and partners. specific actions for
Respondents increased outreach.
Begin one-pager press
releases. Hold annual
users’ conference.
Enhance BEA’s Worked with ESA staff Establish external
Ability to Tell on budget and external affairs function and
Budget Story to affairs. Prepared budget staff capa-
Stakeholders detailed, bottom-up bility. Deploy
budget for FY 2003. operating budgets
managed by personnel
costs.
Improve and Expand Began implementation Work with OCIO and
the Availability and of new software to program offices to
Usefulness of the streamline and create a unified data
Publication of automate preparation dissemination archi-
BEA’s Statistical of tables for tecture to facilitate
Information in Print, publication. publication of data in
for Electronic Media, printed and electronic
and on the Web formats. Update
standards and proce-
dures for submitting
material for
publication. Initiate
redesign of the SURVEY
and other publications
for the electronic
age.
Improve Financial Provided BEA managers Increase usefulness of
Management at BEA with financial data financial data by
necessary to manage beginning development
programs. of activity-based cost
system.
Office of Chief Information Officer
Maintain Voice Maintained voice mail Maintained voice mail
Communications system. system.
Maintained phone Maintained phone
system. system.
Major Projects Upgraded secretarial
phone systems.
Maintain Local Area Maintained hardware, Maintained hardware,
Network system software, system software,
backup systems. backup systems.
Monitored operations. Monitor operations 24
hours a day.
Installed Bindview
software to administer Administer user
accounts. accounts.
Major Projects Upgraded servers to Upgrade network backup
NetWare 5.1 OS. systems.
Analyzed and procured Upgrade network hub,
new firewalls and VPN. switches, and routers.
Upgraded backup Implement FAME server.
software–ArcServe
6.6. Implement Storage Area
Network (SAN)
Upgraded Intranet capability.
hardware.
Upgrade our network CD
Redesigned BEA Test delivery service.
LAN.
Investigate new OS.
Implemented OECD data
link. Investigate server
consolidation/
clustering services as
part of OS upgrade.
Upgrade to SQL 2000.
Upgrade to Windows
2000 Server.
Investigate use of
collaborative work
flow application.
Maintain Workstations Maintained desktop Maintain desktop
hardware/software hardware and software
support. support.
Upgraded 260 desktop Replace 150
workstations. workstations.
Installed 15 new Replace network and
personal printers and personal printers.
6 network printers.
Replace laptop
Installed Zenworks for computers.
Desktops to facilitate
software installs.
Major Projects Upgraded to Windows Upgrade Office
2000. Automation Suite.
Upgraded COTS Upgrade COTS software.
software.
Develop Software Asset
Completed analysis for Management Systems.
Aremos replacement and
procurement of FAME
software.
Provide Applications Maintained and Maintain and support
Development Support supported program applications program
office and adminis- office.
trative systems.
Maintain and support
Maintained and administrative
supported econometric systems.
software.
Maintain and support
Maintained and BEA Web applications.
supported Microsoft
SQL server software. Maintain and support
econometric software.
Maintain and support
database software.
Continue support for
data conversion.
Major Projects Completed functional Redesign centralized
requirements for NIPA NIPA processing
IT modernization. systems.
Implemented NIPA Implement Web
Tables Web applications for IED
Application. and BPD.
Implemented NIPA Enhance Web
database for Pattern applications for NIWD.
Stream table
production. Continue to implement
electronic reporting
Implemented electronic for BEA surveys
reporting for BE-577 (ASTAR).
and BE-605 and design
for BE-40. Redesign BPD Quarterly
Processing System.
Implemented GDP-by-
Industry System. Begin IID system Re-
engineering (COBOL
Completed Major systems).
Components of Bench-
mark I-O System. Implement Web Mapping
for Regional Division.
Completed prototype of Implement SQL2000.
IED Web system and BPD
Web system. Conversion to FAME.
Upgraded Private Upgrade Cold Fusion
Capital system. Servers.
Completed analysis for
Aremos replacement and
procurement of FAME
software.
Provide Information Developed and Develop and implement
Technology (IT) implemented 2000-2001 annual IT training
Training for BEA annual IT training plan.
Staff plan.
Conduct IT training
Provided for 120 IT courses.
training sessions for
users. Conduct security
refresher training.
Conducted security
refresher training.
Major Projects Upgraded Cyber
Learning online
training capabilities.
Provide HelpDesk Provided 7:30AM- Provide 7:30 AM-
Support 5:30 PM HelpDesk 5:30 PM HelpDesk
support. support.
Major Projects Enhanced Help Desk Provide user interface
Tracking system. to Help Desk tracking
system.
Investigate ways to
enhance HelpDesk
Support.
Review and update
existing IT documen-
tation on Intranet.
Maintain BEA’s Web Provided 24-hour Web Provided 24-hour Web
site hardware and software hardware and software
support. support.
Major Projects Upgraded reporting Complete Firewall
software. upgrades.
Installed database Investigate hot fail-
capabilities including over services for Web
hardware. site.
Deploy Plans and Updated Strategic Update Strategic
Politics Information Technology Information Technology
Plan. Plan.
Provided IT project Provide IT project
management oversight management oversight.
for NIPA modernization
and Web site Provide IT budgetary
development. oversight.
Prepared FY 2003 IT Update Operational IT
budgets. Plans.
Updated Operational IT Update IT
Plans. architecture.
Updated IT Update Security Plans.
architecture.
Liaison with DOC CIO.
Updated six Security
Plans. Issue Software
Development standards.
Revised all 11
Security Plans for new Implement DOC IT
NIST standards. management,
restructuring.
Completed GAO, NSA,
and GISRA Security Create BEA Technical
Reviews. Reference Model.
Participated on DOC Enforce SAT standards.
CIO Security Task
Force. Develop e-mail
Standard Operating
Implemented Software Procedure.
Development Life Cycle
Standards, Data Base
Standards and
Configuration
Management Standards.
Implemented DOC IT
management,
restructuring plan.
Updated BEA Technical
Reference Model.
Maintain IT Security Update security plans.
Conduct IT security
refresher training.
Monitor Computer
Incident Response
Team.
Monitor Department of
Commerce IT security
initiatives and
requests for
information.
Programs 2003 2004
Recruit, Develop and Put in place Evaluate effectiveness
Retain a High- succession planning. of recruitment and
Quality, Diverse Act on results of retention efforts.
Workforce employee survey. Develop measures for
Continue use of further improvement.
recruitment and Conduct employee
retention supplemental survey, publish, and
programs. Evaluate act on results.
training program and
develop measures for
further improvements.
Know, Understand, and Continue with Conduct customer
Respond Better to increased outreach survey. Evaluate Web
Customers, Partners, efforts to all site for effective-
and Survey customers, stake- ness. Develop additio-
Respondents holders, and partners. nal measures for in-
Conduct customer creased outreach
survey. Hold annual efforts. Hold annual
users’ conference. users’ conference.
Enhance BEA’s Continue with bottom- Seek additional
Ability to Tell up development of measures for improving
Budget Story to detailed operating and communicating
Stakeholders budget. improvements to BEA
financial management.
Improve and Expand Assess scope and Enhance presentation
the Availability and effectiveness of BEA’s of the SURVEY and
Usefulness of the dissemination other publications on
Publication of activities across the Web. Identify and
BEA’s Statistical program areas. implement specific
Information in Print, Implement publication improvements in
for Electronic Media, design improvements. response to customer
and on the Web Assess desirability feedback.
and feasibility of
reviewing electronic
products and Web
postings.
Improve Financial Implement an activity- Provide BEA managers
Management at BEA based cost system. with financial data
Provide product cost necessary to manage
information to programs.
managers.
Office of Chief Information Officer
Maintain Voice Maintained voice mail Maintained voice mail
Communications system. system.
Maintained phone Maintained phone
system. system.
Major Projects Replace phone system.
Replace voice mail
system.
Maintain Local Area Maintain hardware, Maintain hardware,
Network system software, system software,
backup systems. backup systems.
Monitor operations 24 Monitor operations 24
hours a day. hours a day.
Administer user Administer user
accounts. accounts.
Major Projects Replace file servers. Upgrade database
operation systems.
Investigate and
implement new Implement new OS.
operating systems.
Upgrade firewalls.
Upgrade e-mail system.
Evaluate integrity of
Implement SAN building wiring.
capability.
Maintain Workstations Maintain desktop Maintain desktop
hardware and software hardware and software
support. support.
Replace 150 Replace 150
workstations. workstations.
Replace network and Replace network and
personal printers. personal printers.
Replace laptop
computers.
Major Projects Upgrade Office Upgrade desktop
Automation Suite. operating system.
Upgrade COTS software. Upgrade COTS software.
Upgrade desktop
software management
system.
Upgrade virus
protection software.
Provide Applications Maintain and support Maintain and support
Development Support applications program program office
office. applications.
Maintain and support Maintain and support
administrative administrative
systems. systems.
Maintain and support Maintain and support
BEA Web applications. BEA Web applications.
Maintain and support Maintain and support
econometric software. econometric software.
Maintain and support Maintain and support
database software. database software.
Continue support for Continue support for
data conversion. data conversion.
Major Projects NIPA IT modernization. NIPA IT modernization.
Upgrade Web Upgrade Web
Applications. Applications.
Upgrade electronic BPD and IID system Re-
reporting. engineering.
BPD and IID system Re- GDP-by-Industry system
engineering. Re-engineering.
GDP-by-Industry system Annual/Benchmark I-O
Re-engineering. system Re-engineering.
Annual/Benchmark I-O Re-engineer to
system Re-engineering. generate more timely
data.
Re-engineer to
generate more timely Re-engineer to
data. incorporate NAICS.
Re-engineer to Continue conversion to
incorporate NAICS. FAME.
Continue conversion to Begin regional system
FAME. Re-engineering.
Provide Information Develop and implement Develop and implement
Technology (IT) annual IT training annual IT training
Training for BEA plan. plan.
Staff
Conduct IT training Conduct IT training
courses. courses.
Conduct security Conduct security
refresher training. refresher training.
Major Projects Upgrade online
training capabilities.
Provide HelpDesk Provide 7:30 AM- Provide 7:30 AM-
Support 5:30 PM HelpDesk 5:30 PM HelpDesk
support. support.
Major Projects Review and update Review and update
existing IT existing IT
documentation on documentation on
Intranet. Intranet.
Maintain BEA’s Web Provide 24-hour Web Provide 24-hour Web
site hardware and software hardware and software
support. support.
Major Projects Upgrade Security Upgrade Security
infrastructure. infrastructure.
Upgrade telecommuting
infrastructure.
Deploy Plans and Update Strategic Update Strategic
Politics Information Technology Information Technology
Plan. Plan.
Provide IT project Provide IT project
management oversight. management oversight.
Provide IT budgetary Provide IT budgetary
oversight. oversight.
Update Operational IT Update Operational IT
Plans. Plans.
Update IT Update IT
architecture. architecture.
Update Security Plans. Update Security Plans.
Liaison with DOC CIO. Liaison with DOC CIO.
Issue Software Issue Software
Development standards. Development standards.
Oversee DOC IT Oversee DOC IT
management, management
restructuring. restructuring.
Create BEA Technical Create BEA Technical
Reference Model. Reference Model.
Enforce SAT standards. Enforce SAT standards.
Maintain IT Security Update security plans. Update security plans.
Conduct IT security Conduct IT security
refresher training. refresher training.
Monitor Computer Monitor Computer
Incident Response Incident Response
Team. Team.
Monitor Department of Monitor Department of
Commerce IT security Commerce IT security
initiatives and initiatives and
requests for requests for
information. information.
Programs 2005
Recruit, Develop and Increase effectiveness of
Retain a High- recruitment and retention
Quality, Diverse through use of various
Workforce supplemental programs. Train
workforce to meet current and
future challenges. Seek avenues
for increased employee
satisfaction.
Know, Understand, and Increase outreach efforts to all
Respond Better to customers, stakeholders and
Customers, Partners, partners. Conduct customer
and Survey survey. Hold annual users’
Respondents conference.
Enhance BEA’s Conduct comprehensive
Ability to Tell evaluation of external affairs
Budget Story to and budget functions. Act on
Stakeholders results of evaluation.
Improve and Expand Conduct comprehensive
the Availability and evaluation of BEA
Usefulness of the dissemination program. Initiate
Publication of further actions based on this
BEA’s Statistical evaluation.
Information in Print,
for Electronic Media,
and on the Web
Improve Financial Conduct comprehensive
Management at BEA analysis of BEA financial
management and seek measures
for improvement.
Office of Chief Information Officer
Maintain Voice Maintain voice mail system.
Communications
Maintain phone system.
Major Projects
Maintain Local Area Maintain hardware, system
Network software, backup systems.
Monitor operations 24 hours a
day.
Administer user accounts.
Major Projects Upgrade network backup
systems.
Upgrade network hub, switches,
and routers.
Maintain Workstations Maintain desktop hardware and
software support.
Replace 150 workstations.
Replace network and personal
printers.
Major Projects Upgrade desktop operating
system.
Upgrade COTS software.
Upgrade desktop software
management system.
Upgrade virus protection
software.
Provide Applications Maintain and support program
Development Support office applications.
Maintain and support
administrative systems.
Maintain and support BEA Web
applications.
Maintain and support
econometric software.
Maintain and support database
software.
Continue support for data
conversion.
Major Projects NIPA IT modernization.
Upgrade Web Applications.
BPD and IID system Re-
engineering.
GDP-by-Industry system Re-
engineering.
Annual/Benchmark I-O system
Re-engineering.
Regional system Re-
engineering.
Provide Information Develop and implement annual
Technology (IT) IT training plan.
Training for BEA
Staff Conduct IT training courses.
Conduct security refresher
training.
Major Projects Upgrade online training
capabilities.
Provide HelpDesk Provide 7:30 AM-5:30 PM
Support HelpDesk support.
Major Projects Review and update existing IT
documentation on Intranet.
Maintain BEA’s Web Provide 24-hour Web hardware
site and software support.
Major Projects Upgrade Security
infrastructure.
Deploy Plans and Update Strategic Information
Politics Technology Plan.
Provide IT project management
oversight.
Provide IT budgetary oversight.
Update Operational IT Plans.
Update IT architecture.
Update Security Plans.
Liaison with DOC CIO.
Issue Software Development
standards.
Oversee DOC IT management
restructuring.
Create BEA Technical Reference
Model.
Enforce SAT standards.
Maintain IT Security Update security plans.
Conduct IT security refresher
training.
Monitor Computer Incident
Response Team.
Monitor Department of
Commerce IT security
initiatives and requests for
information.
BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics
BPD Balance of Payments Division
CBAD Current Business Analysis Division
GD Government Division
IED Industry Economics Division
IMF International Monetary Fund
IRS Internal Revenue Service
NIWD National Income and Wealth Division
NIH National Institutes of Health
OCIO Office of the Chief Information Officer
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OMB Office of Management and Budget
REMD Regional Economic Measurement Division
(1.) See “BEA’s Preliminary Strategic Plan for 2001-2005,” SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS (December 2001): 23-39.
(2.) A useful recent review of issues and potential improvements in constructing price indexes is contained in Charles Schultze and Christopher Mackie, eds., At What Price?: Conceptualizing and Measuring Cost-of-Living and Price Indexes, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2001.
(3.) A discussion of the pattern of output and other cyclical indicators along with a comparison with other postwar recessions is contained in William Nordhaus, “Puzzles About the American Economy in the Current Recession and Recovery,” forthcoming, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2002:1. A draft of the paper is available at .
(4.) The SNA, developed under the aegis of the United Nations and other international agencies, is a set of concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules. The latest SNA is from 1993 and can be found at .
(5.) The Jorgenson set of accounts is described in Barbara Fraumeni, “The Jorgenson System of National Accounting” in Lawrence J. Lau, ed., Econometrics and the Cost of Capital: Essays in Honor of Dale W. Jorgenson, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999.
(6.) William G. Gale and John Sabelhaus, “Perspectives on the Household Saving Rate,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1999:1.
(7.) Annamaria Lusardi, Jonathan Skinner, and Steven Venti, “Saving Puzzles and Saving Policies in the United States,” Dartmouth College Working Paper 01-04, February 2001.
(8.) See Robert Eisner, “Extended accounts for national income and product,” Journal of Economic Literature, December 1988, 26:1611-1684, Table S.5 for comparisons of market and comprehensive income and saving measures.
(9.) Dale W. Jorgenson and Barbara M. Fraumeni, “Investment in Education and U.S. Economic Growth,” Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 1992, Supplement, pp. 51-70.
(10.) “Integrated Economic and Environmental Satellite Accounts,” SURVEY (April 1994), pp. 33-49.
(11.) United States Environmental Protection Agency, The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act, 1970 to 1990, Washington, D.C., Office of Air and Radiation/Office of Policy Analysis and Review/Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation, April, 1997.
(12.) See Nordhaus, William D. and Edward Kokkelenberg, eds., Nature’s Numbers: Expanding the National Economic Accounts to Include the Environment: Report of the Panel on Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting, Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1999; see also the November 1999, February 2000, and March 2000 issues of the SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS for reprints of three chapters from Nature’s Numbers.
(13.) See Diane Herz and Richard M. Devens, Jr., “The American Time-Use Survey,” Industrial Relations, Volume 40, No. 3, July 2001.
(14.) See the discussion in William Nordhaus, “New Directions in National Economic Accounting,” American Economic Review, May 2001, which extends the results from Jesse H. Ausubel and Arnulf Gruebler, “Working Less and Living Longer: Long-term Trends in Working Time and Time Budgets,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 1995, pp. 113-131.
(15.) Nordhaus, William D. “The Health of Nations: The Contribution of Improved Health to Living Standards,” forthcoming in Kevin M. Murphy and Robert H. Topel, eds. Exceptional Returns: The Economic Value of America’s Investment in Medical Research, University of Chicago Press, available at .
COPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. Government Printing Office
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
