Glossary

Personal interest income

Interest income received by persons from all sources; includes both monetary and imputed interest.

Personal interest payments

Non-mortgage interest paid by persons.

Persons

In the national income and product accounts (NIPAs), persons consist of individuals, nonprofit institutions that primarily serve individuals, private noninsured welfare funds, and private trust funds. In the international accounts, persons refer to individuals, corporations, branches, partnerships, associated groups, associations, estates, trusts, organizations, or government entities.

Primary inputs

Capital and labor inputs to production; the related costs include, for example, compensation, profits, and depreciation.

Primary producer

The industry that is the main producer of a particular good or service. Typically, this industry shares the same name as the good or service.

Primary product

The principal good or service produced by an industry, which is used to classify establishments in the Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC) or the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

Private remittances

Includes institutional and personal remittances between U.S. private residents and foreign residents. Institutional remittances includes funds transferred and goods shipped to foreign residents by U.S. religious, charitable, educational, scientific, and similar nonprofit organizations. Personal remittances include remittances in cash between U.S. private residents and foreign residents.

Producers' prices

Commodity transactions in the input-output (I-O) accounts are valued in producers' prices in order to show the relationship between the production of commodities and their purchase by intermediate and final uses. These prices exclude wholesale and retail trade margins and transportation costs, but they include sales and excise taxes collected and remitted by producers. Transportation costs and wholesale and retail trade margins are treated separately as commodities that are produced by industries and purchased by intermediate and final users.

Proprietors' income

Current-production income of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and tax-exempt cooperatives. Excludes dividends, monetary interest received by nonfinancial business, and rental income received by persons not primarily engaged in the real estate business.

Recession

In general usage, the word recession connotes a marked slippage in economic activity. While gross domestic product (GDP) is the broadest measure of economic activity, the often-cited identification of a recession with two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth is not an official designation. The designation of a recession is the province of a committee of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private non-profit research organization that focuses on understanding the U.S. economy. The NBER recession is a monthly concept that takes account of a number of monthly indicators—such as employment, personal income, and industrial production—as well as quarterly GDP growth. Therefore, while negative GDP growth and recessions closely track each other, the consideration by the NBER of the monthly indicators, especially employment, means that the identification of a recession with two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth does not always hold. For information on recession, or business-cycle, dating, see: http://www.nber.org/cycles/jan08bcdc_memo.html.

Reclassification

An adjustment made to the input-output (I-O) accounts when there are two or more industries whose primary activity is the production of similar commodities and the commodities differ only in the process used to produced them. The output of one commodity is moved (reclassified) to be part of the output of the other, similar commodity. Total output for the affected industry remains unchanged; however, output for each affected commodity group changes.

Redefinition

An adjustment made to the input-output (I-O) accounts when a secondary product is assumed to have very different inputs than the other products of the producing industry. The secondary product (output and inputs) is moved (redefined) to the industry to which the product is primary. The adjustment is necessary to attain a homogenous input structure for the commodities produced by an I-O industry.

Reinvested earnings (direct investment)

A parent company's claim on the current-period undistributed after-tax earnings of its affiliates.

Rental income of persons with capital consumption adjustment

Earnings from the rental of real property by persons who are not primarily engaged in the real estate business. It also includes the imputed net rental income of owner-occupants and the royalties received by persons from patents, copyrights, and rights to natural resources.

Residential fixed investment

Consists of purchases of private residential structures and residential equipment that is owned by landlords and rented to tenants.

Residential structures

Investment in residential structures consists of new construction of permanent-site single-family and multi-family units, improvements (additions, alterations, and major structural replacements) to housing units, expenditures on manufactured homes, brokers'commissions on the sale of residential property, and net purchases of used structures from government agencies. Residential structures also include some types of equipment that are built into residential structures, such as heating and air-conditioning equipment.

RIMS II multipliers

Estimates of regional input-output multipliers for any state, county, or combination of states or counties. The multipliers estimate the impact from changes in final demand on one or more regional industries in terms of output, employment, and labor earnings. The multipliers are based on estimates of local area personal income and on the national input-output (I-O) accounts.

Sales of services through foreign affiliates of multinational companies

Services sold in international markets through the channel of direct investment. From the U.S. viewpoint, it consists of sales of services to foreigners by foreign affiliates of U.S. companies and U.S. purchases of services from other countries' U.S. affiliates. It is one of two channels in the delivery of services in international markets; the other is cross-border trade in services.

Satellite Industry Accounts

Satellite Industry Accounts are statistical frameworks that are designed to expand the analytical capacity of the national income and product accounts and the input-output accounts and to supplement these accounts by focusing on a particular aspect of economic activity. Two sets of Satellite Industry Accounts that are based on the input-output accounts have been prepared: The Travel and Tourism Satellite Accounts and the Transportation Satellite Accounts.

Second estimate

The second estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) and its components for a quarter. It is released 55-60 days after the end of the quarter, and it is based on source data that are more complete than the advance estimate, though they are still subject to revision.

Secondary producer

An industry that, in addition to producing its primary product, also produces other goods or services. These other goods or services are referred to as secondary products. Typically, the industry shares the same name as the primary product that it produces.