Resources
- Stay informed about BEA developments by reading The BEA Wire, signing up for BEA's email subscription service, or following @BEA_News on X.
- Historical time series for gross domestic product for the U.S. territories can be accessed on BEA's website.
- For more on BEA statistics, see our online journal, the Survey of Current Business.
- For upcoming economic indicators, see BEA's news release schedule.
Definitions
Gross domestic product (GDP) is the value of the goods and services produced by the Puerto Rico economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production. GDP is also equal to the sum of personal consumption expenditures, private fixed investment, change in private inventories, net exports of goods and services, and government consumption expenditures and gross investment.
Personal consumption expenditures measures the goods and services purchased by "persons"—that is, by households and by nonprofit institutions serving households—who are resident in Puerto Rico.
Private fixed investment measures spending by private businesses, nonprofit institutions, and households on fixed assets in the Puerto Rico economy. Fixed assets consist of structures, equipment, and intellectual property products that are used in the production of goods and services.
Change in private inventories, or "private inventory investment," is a measure of the value of the change in the physical volume of the inventories—additions less withdrawals—that businesses maintain to support their production and distribution activities.
Net exports of goods and services is the difference between exports of goods and services and imports of goods and services. Exports measures the portion of total Puerto Rico production of goods and services that is provided to the rest of the world. Imports measures the portion of total Puerto Rico expenditures that is accounted for by goods and services provided by the rest of the world.
Government consumption expenditures and gross investment, or "government spending," measures the portion of GDP that is accounted for by the government sector. Government consumption expenditures consists of spending by government to produce and provide services to the public. Gross investment consists of spending by government for fixed assets that directly benefit the public or that assist government agencies in their production activities.
Current-dollar estimates are valued in the prices of the period when the transactions occurred—that is, at "market value" (also referred to as "nominal estimates" or "current-price estimates").
Real values are inflation-adjusted estimates—that is, estimates that exclude the effects of price changes.
Statistical conventions
Quantities (or "real" volume measures) and prices are expressed as index numbers with a specified reference year equal to 100 (currently 2012). Quantity and price indexes are calculated using a Fisher chain-weighted formula that incorporates weights from two adjacent years. "Real" dollar series are calculated by multiplying the quantity index by the current-dollar value in the reference year and then dividing by 100.
Chained-dollar values are not additive, because the relative weights for a given period differ from those of the reference year.