Director's Page

BEA strives to provide the most timely, relevant and accurate economic data to you, our users, to help promote a better understanding of the U.S. economy. These reliable and consistent measures of economic activity are essential to the informed decisionmaking of policymakers, business leaders and every American household. The success of our statistical programs, in large part, is determined by your confidence in our data, and your suggestions for improving that data. As one of the world's leading statistical agencies, we are dedicated to staying on the cutting edge of the economy.

Stay informed by visiting this page to learn more about BEA’s full range of activities. A review of activities at the Bureau, including research, IT developments, and recent data releases are available below. The 5-year BEA Strategic Plan is available below for your review as well as a report card of our successes in meeting the over 200 annual milestones in the Plan. Information on the President's current budget request for BEA also is available. Finally, articles, presentations, and other materials can be found here to keep you informed on topics ranging from GDP and the measurement of standards of living to the response of the statistical system to the financial crisis.

If you have any questions or issues about BEA that you would like to share, I encourage you to contact me or any member of the BEA staff. We welcome your comments and suggestions. When you talk, we listen.

State of the Bureau

• Director's Message - Survey of Current Business (PDF)
• Taking Account: BEA handbook adds a chapter on profits (PDF)
• Research Spotlight: A Prototype BEA/BLS Industry-Level Production Account for the United States (PDF)
• BEA Briefing: Territorial Economic Accounts for American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (PDF)

About the Director

• Director's Biography
• "Meet BEA Director Steve Landefeld"
  Taken from AMSTATNEWS.
  The Membership Magazine of the American Statistical Association, August 2011

Recent Blogs & FAQs

• How would special and accelerated dividends affect the national income and product accounts in the fourth quarter 2012?
• I usually file the BE-15 annual survey. What is the difference between the BE-12 and the BE-15?

• How reliable are BEA’s early GDP estimates and revisions?

See More Blogs | See More FAQs

Selected Presentations, Articles, and Papers on BEA’s Activities

2013

• Broader Measures of Progress
  February 2013 - UN Statistical Commission Meeting
• IMF Balance of Payments Committee 20th Anniversary Luncheon Remarks
  January 2013 - IMF BOPCOM 20th Anniversary

2012

• FESAC Remarks - December 2012 Meeting
  December 2012 - FESAC Meeting
• Intellectual Property & the Economy
  December 2012 - OECD/MIT Event
• The Importance of, and Challenges to, Incorporating Distributional Information Into Macroeconomic Data
  November 2012 - NABE Statistics Committee Meeting
• BEA's Plans for FY2013
  October 2012 - JEC Briefing
• A "Soup to Nuts" Guide for Modernizing and Integrating the Production and Dissemination of Statistics
  October 2012 - Russia UNECE/Rosstat Event
• Intellectual Property & the Economy
  September 2012 - NY State Bar IP Meeting
• New Data Sources and Methods for GDP and other BEA Statistics
  July 2012 - NBER New Data Sources Meeting
• Intellectual Property & the Economy
  June 2012 - IP Taskforce Meeting
• BEA/BLS/Census Collaboration Activities for FESAC
  June 2012 - FESAC Meeting
• Digital Delivery of Cross-Border Services: What's the Importance of "Digital Trade" to the US Trade Balance
  May 2012 - CSI Digital Services Event

Selected Topics

• State of the Bureau
• About the Director
• Recent Blogs & FAQs
• Selected Articles, Presentations, and Papers on BEA’s Activities