|
 |
 |
 |
 |
Home > Publications > Survey of Current Business > August 2003 - Volume 83 - Number 8 |
| |
August 2003 - Volume 83 - Number 8Business Situation: Advance Estimates for the Second Quarter of 2003 U.S. production stepped up in the second quarter of 2003: Real GDP increased
2.4 percent after increasing 1.4 percent in the first quarter. Federal
spending on national defense and consumer spending on durable goods both
turned up. Inflation slowed sharply: The price index for gross domestic
purchases increased 0.3 percent after increasing 3.4 percent. The slowdown
was largely attributable to a downturn in energy prices. Preview of the 2003 Comprehensive Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts: New and Redesigned Tables The upcoming comprehensive revision will feature significant changes
in the presentation of the NIPA's. These changes are designed to make
it easier for data users to locate information and to improve the comparability
of the NIPA's with other U.S. accounts, such as BEA's input-output accounts
and the Federal Reserve Board's flow of funds accounts, and with the accounts
of other nations. Among the major changes are the following: An updated
presentation of the NIPA summary accounts that shows the composition of
production and the distribution of incomes earned in production, new and
redesigned tables that reflect changes in definitions and classifications,
new tables that highlight percent changes and contributions to percent
change, and a new organization and numbering system for the NIPA tables. Information Technology and Productivity: The Case of the Financial Sector It is widely held that infusions of information technology beginning
in the 1980s and intensifying in the 1990s have raised the overall productivity
of the U.S. economy and spurred economic growth. In this article, Nobel
laureate Lawrence Klein and Cynthia Saltzman and Vijaya Duggal, both professors
at Widener University in Pennsylvania, present the results of their study
of the impact of information technology on the financial sector, one of
the first sectors to use computer services on a large scale and for a
prolonged period. Using data from BEA's benchmark and annual input-output
accounts, the authors confirm the large and prolonged contributions of
information technology to the productivity gains in the finance sector. U.S. Affiliates of Foreign Companies: Operations in 2001 The current-dollar gross product of U.S. nonbank affiliates of foreign
companies fell 6 percent in 2001, the first decrease since annual data
on affiliate operations became available in 1977. The U.S. affiliate share
of U.S. gross domestic product in private industries dropped from a record
6.9 percent in 2000 to 6.4 percent in 2001, reversing a 5-year uptrend.
The downturn in the gross product of U.S. affiliates reflected a sharp
drop in new foreign investment and a combination of foreign selloffs of
U.S. affiliates and of reductions in ongoing affiliate production. State Personal Income: First Quarter 2003 and Revised 2002 Growth in personal income picked up in 39 states in the first quarter
of 2003, reflecting the acceleration in growth in personal income for
the Nation to 0.9 percent from 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002.
The majority of the fastest growing states were in either the Plains region
or the Rocky Mountain region, where growth was particularly rapid in natural
resources and mining. As a result of the incorporation of newly available
and revised source data on wages and salaries, the estimate of the U.S.
total of state personal income for 2002 was revised down $31.2 billion,
to $8,891.1 billion. New York had the largest downward revision to personal
income. Looking AheadComprehensive Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts. The initial results of the upcoming comprehensive or benchmark revision of the NIPA's are scheduled for release in December 2003. The annual revision of the NIPA estimates for 2000-2002, which would usually be published in this issue of the Survey, will be included as part of the comprehensive revision. The September Survey will include an article about the major statistical changes that will be introduced. (An article in the June Survey described the upcoming changes in definitions and classifications, and an article in this issue describes the upcoming changes in presentation.) BEA Current and Historical Data
|
|
