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BEA’s REGIONAL ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS :

AN UPDATE

Joel D. PlattC2ER Annual Conference

Oklahoma City, OK

June 8, 2012

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Topics

▪ Budget Update

▪ New Interactive Data Application

▪ Planned Improvements\New Statistics

▪ Questions\Comments

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Current Budget Environment

Department strongly supports BEA’s mission, but budgets are extremely tight and cuts are likely

BEA needs to continue producing its core statistical products

“Flat” budgets in even a mild inflationary environment erode base funds

BEA’s building lease expires in FY 2013

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BEA’s FY 2012 Budget: $92.2 m

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Industry—$13.2 m (14%)

Regional—$16.3 m (18%)

International—$31.7 m (34%)

National—$31.1 m (34%)

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Spending by Category

People (69%)

Data contracts (2%)

Rent (7%)

IT (8%)

Overhead, other charges (12%)

Training (2%)

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“Menu” of Potential Future Cuts

▪ Eliminate advance GDP by industry statistics ($1.1 m)

▪ Eliminate county and metro area personal income statistics ($2 m)

▪ Eliminate monthly estimates of personal income and outlays ($2.3 m)

▪ Dramatically scale back projects to modernize the accounts such as better measures of health care inflation ($3 m)

▪ Reduce detail, periodicity, and analysis of FDI/MNC data ($5 m)

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“Menu” of Potential Future Cuts

▪ Discontinue “underlying detail” tables for GDP and the national accounts ($400 k)

▪ Discontinue RIMS program ($1.4 m)

▪ Discontinue travel and tourism statistics (net $150 k)

▪ Discontinue paper publications ($180 k)

▪ Scale back the IT modernization and systems reengineering ($3 m)

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New Interactive Application

▪ Interactive tables—the heart of the new application

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Interactive Tables

▪ Easier to share

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Interactive Tables

▪ Log-in to save complex tables, charts

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Interactive Charts

▪ Enhanced features

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Interactive Charts

▪ More customer friendly Color coded Full-screen Line charts and bar charts

▪ Option to save as .png file to drop into presentations and documents

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Planned Improvements\New Statistics

▪ Accelerate release of local area personal income statistics by 5 months

▪ Price adjusted state and metropolitan area personal income

▪ Release of new RIMS II User Guide▪ Quarterly GDP by State▪ PCE by State

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2011-2012 Local Area Personal Income Releases

Advance metro area release August 9, 2011 (2010)

County compensation release December 14, 2011 (2008-2010)

Local area personal income April 24, 2012 (2008-2010)

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2012-2013 Local Area Personal Income Release

▪ All local area personal income released November 26, 2012

▪ County personal income and final metropolitan area personal income accelerated by 5 months (2009-2011)

▪ No advance metropolitan area personal income release

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Price Adjusted Personal Income

▪ Survey of Current Business Article: August 2012

▪ Experimental Regional Price Parities

▪ Experimental price adjusted state and metropolitan area personal income (2006-2010)

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RIMS II Handbook

▪ Updated and improved user guide BEA’s Region Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II): September 2012

▪ Emphasis on limitations of regional input-output multipliers and their proper use

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Quarterly GDP by State

▪ Prototype Quarterly GDP by Industry statistics for 2007-2009: Survey of Current Business July 2011

▪ Prototype Quarterly GDP by Industry for 2007-2011: Survey of Current Business June 2012

▪ Regional Accounts staff collaborating with Industry staff to develop Prototype Quarterly GDP by State statistics

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PCE by State

▪ Beginning stages of development▪ National definitions and controls

provide consistency with NIPAs▪ State-level PCE data issues

Less detailed data for geographic areas

Imputations in NIPAs are challenging at state level

PCE residency adjustment needed for point of sale data

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