The views expressed in these papers are solely those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis or the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Key economic indicators, such as GDP and unemployment rates, provide a useful backdrop for assessing the state of the economy. However, more nuanced statistics can be of use during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we extend the domain of relevance for economic statistics by developing a… Read more
There is an ongoing debate on whether residual seasonality is present in the estimates of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in U.S. national accounts and whether it explains the slower quarter-one GDP growth rate in the recent years. This paper aims to bring clarity to this topic by 1)… Read more
By Baoline Chen, Tucker S. McElroy, Osbert C. Pang
In the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts, commercial bank and fund management services grew modestly or declined in volume terms after 2008, despite substantial increases in the levels of assets and liabilities managed by these businesses. These estimates of limited growth result partly… Read more
This paper is primarily a theoretical proof of concept. However, the inflation estimates developed in this paper could be updated to include future quarters if BEA management is interested in updates.
Major product categories like full service restaurant meals, live entertainment, and nonessential personal services are unavailable during a stay-in-place policy. As a result, their inflation rates cannot be measured directly. The standard methodology used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS… Read more
