Papers
This page provides access to papers and presentations prepared by BEA staff. Abstracts are presented in HTML format; complete papers are in PDF format with selected tables in XLS format. 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.
Increasing the Timeliness of U.S. Annual I-O Accounts
The timeliness of the U.S. input-output (I-O) accounts is a major concern for policymakers and industry analysts, as well as academics. In response, the Bureau of Economic Analysis initiated research in 2001 to identify, develop and implement an estimating method for producing more timely and… Read more
From Make-Use to Symmetric I-O Tables: An Assessment of Alternative Technology Assumptions
Since the United Nations introduced the nonsymmetrical make-use input-output (I-O) tables in 1968, there have been on-going discussions about ways to translate them into symmetric I-O tables. The discussions have focused on secondary products that cause the asymmetry between industries and… Read more
Information Processing Equipment and Software in the National Accounts
In the U.S. national income and product accounts (NIPA's), most of the types of goods in the investment category "information processing (IP) equipment and software" have experienced rapidly changing technology and are thus candidates for inclusion in the new economy. The NIPA price indexes for… Read more
R&D in the National Income and Product Accounts: A First Look at its Effect on GDP
According to the estimates in this paper, R&D is a significant contributor to economic growth. Over the forty-year period studied, 1961-2000, returns to R&D capital accounted for 10 percent of growth in real GDP. Treating R&D as an investment raises the national savings rate by two… Read more
The Expanding Role of Hedonic Methods in the Official Statistics of the United States
The method of using regressions of prices on characteristics to adjust for quality changes has grown dramatically in the United States statistical agencies in recent years. For example, currently 18 percent of the final expenditures in gross domestic product is deflated using price indexes that… Read more
BEA's Preliminary Strategic Plan for 2001 - 2005
This paper provides background information on the new economy and how it relates to BEA’s economic accounts. It is designed to answer the following questions:
- What is the new economy?
- Why is it important that the new economy be captured in GDP and BEA’s other economic… Read more
Investigating Convergence of the U.S. Regions: A Time-Series Analysis
Most economists conclude that the U.S. regions have converged in per capita earnings during a majority of the 20th century, though controversy abounds over the methods employed to test for such convergence. Using time-series techniques, this paper finds evidence that the U.S. regions have… Read more