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.

Rental equivalence estimates of national and regional housing expenditures

The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) series published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) includes estimates of rent expenditures and owner-occupied housing expenditures for the benchmark year 2001. The main data sources are the Residential Financial Survey (RFS), carried out in… Read more

Bettina H. Aten
Published
JEL Code(s)R31
WP2017-5

Exploratory Estimates of U.S. International Services by Mode of Supply

This paper presents exploratory estimates of U.S. international supply of services by mode. There is interest in international services by mode partly because government trade negotiators structure agreements around these modes. The estimates are based on statistics on trade in services… Read more

Michael Mann
Published
JEL Code(s)None Assigned
WP2017-6

A Comparison of Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics Disease-Price Indexes

National health expenditures and health care prices are routinely measured according to type of service, such as hospital care, physician care, or prescription drugs. The official National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) maintained by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS),… Read more

Charles Roehrig
Published
JEL Code(s)None Assigned
WP2017-3

Engines of Leisure

U.S. time use patterns have changed over the last century in ways that appear inconsistent. Leisure has increased with income but has increased most for the poorest. I develop a unified model that treats leisure as an economic activity. Leisure services are produced using capital, like… Read more

Benjamin R. Bridgman
Published
JEL Code(s)D13
WP2016-7

Adjusting Health Expenditures for Inflation: A Review of Measures for Health Services Research in the United States

Objective. To provide guidance on selecting the most appropriate price index for adjusting health expenditures or costs for inflation.

Data Sources. Major price index series produced by federal statistical agencies.

Study Design. We compare the key characteristics of each index… Read more

Abe C. Dunn
Published
JEL Code(s)None Assigned

Depreciation of Business R&D Capital

We develop a forward-looking profit model to estimate the depreciation rates of business R&D capital. By using data from Compustat, BEA, and NSF between 1987 and 2008, and the newly developed model, we estimate both constant and time-varying industry-specific R&D depreciation rates. The… Read more

Bronwyn H. Hall
Published
JEL Code(s)None Assigned
WP2016-5

A Research Agenda for Measuring GDP at the County Level

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes gross domestic product (GDP) statistics for the nation, states, and metropolitan areas. GDP by county statistics would provide a much richer picture of the geographic distribution of the nation’s economic activity to assist analysts in the… Read more

Ledia Guci, Charles Ian Mead, Sharon D. Panek
Published
JEL Code(s)R12
WP2016-4

Quasi-Corporations and Institutional Sectors in the U.S. National Accounts

The System of National Accounts (SNA) classifies each resident institutional unit to one of five institutional sectors. The corporations sector in the SNA includes a concept of quasi-corporations, which are unincorporated enterprises that have no legal status separate from… Read more

Dylan Rassier, Melissa J. Braybrooks, Jason W. Chute, Howard I. Krakower
Published
JEL Code(s)None Assigned
WP2017-1

Valuing 'Free' Media in GDP: An Experimental Approach

‘Free’ consumer entertainment and information from the Internet, largely supported by advertising revenues, has had a major impact on consumer behavior. Some economists believe that gross domestic product (GDP) growth is badly underestimated because GDP excludes online entertainment (… Read more

Leonard Nakamura, Jon D. Samuels, Rachel Soloveichik
Published
JEL Code(s)None Assigned
WP2016-3

Residual Seasonality in GDP and GDI: Findings and Next Steps

This paper presents the results of a component-by-component review of seasonally adjusted estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) and gross domestic income (GDI), two widely followed economic measures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The goal of the review was to test… Read more

Published
JEL Code(s)None Assigned