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BEA’s REGIONAL ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS :
AN UPDATE
Joel D. PlattC2ER Annual Conference
Oklahoma City, OK
June 8, 2012
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Topics
▪ Budget Update
▪ New Interactive Data Application
▪ Planned Improvements\New Statistics
▪ Questions\Comments
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Current Budget Environment
Department strongly supports BEA’s mission, but budgets are extremely tight and cuts are likely
BEA needs to continue producing its core statistical products
“Flat” budgets in even a mild inflationary environment erode base funds
BEA’s building lease expires in FY 2013
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BEA’s FY 2012 Budget: $92.2 m
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Industry—$13.2 m (14%)
Regional—$16.3 m (18%)
International—$31.7 m (34%)
National—$31.1 m (34%)
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Spending by Category
People (69%)
Data contracts (2%)
Rent (7%)
IT (8%)
Overhead, other charges (12%)
Training (2%)
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“Menu” of Potential Future Cuts
▪ Eliminate advance GDP by industry statistics ($1.1 m)
▪ Eliminate county and metro area personal income statistics ($2 m)
▪ Eliminate monthly estimates of personal income and outlays ($2.3 m)
▪ Dramatically scale back projects to modernize the accounts such as better measures of health care inflation ($3 m)
▪ Reduce detail, periodicity, and analysis of FDI/MNC data ($5 m)
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“Menu” of Potential Future Cuts
▪ Discontinue “underlying detail” tables for GDP and the national accounts ($400 k)
▪ Discontinue RIMS program ($1.4 m)
▪ Discontinue travel and tourism statistics (net $150 k)
▪ Discontinue paper publications ($180 k)
▪ Scale back the IT modernization and systems reengineering ($3 m)
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New Interactive Application
▪ Interactive tables—the heart of the new application
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Interactive Tables
▪ Easier to share
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Interactive Tables
▪ Log-in to save complex tables, charts
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Interactive Charts
▪ Enhanced features
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Interactive Charts
▪ More customer friendly Color coded Full-screen Line charts and bar charts
▪ Option to save as .png file to drop into presentations and documents
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Planned Improvements\New Statistics
▪ Accelerate release of local area personal income statistics by 5 months
▪ Price adjusted state and metropolitan area personal income
▪ Release of new RIMS II User Guide▪ Quarterly GDP by State▪ PCE by State
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2011-2012 Local Area Personal Income Releases
Advance metro area release August 9, 2011 (2010)
County compensation release December 14, 2011 (2008-2010)
Local area personal income April 24, 2012 (2008-2010)
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2012-2013 Local Area Personal Income Release
▪ All local area personal income released November 26, 2012
▪ County personal income and final metropolitan area personal income accelerated by 5 months (2009-2011)
▪ No advance metropolitan area personal income release
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Price Adjusted Personal Income
▪ Survey of Current Business Article: August 2012
▪ Experimental Regional Price Parities
▪ Experimental price adjusted state and metropolitan area personal income (2006-2010)
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RIMS II Handbook
▪ Updated and improved user guide BEA’s Region Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II): September 2012
▪ Emphasis on limitations of regional input-output multipliers and their proper use
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Quarterly GDP by State
▪ Prototype Quarterly GDP by Industry statistics for 2007-2009: Survey of Current Business July 2011
▪ Prototype Quarterly GDP by Industry for 2007-2011: Survey of Current Business June 2012
▪ Regional Accounts staff collaborating with Industry staff to develop Prototype Quarterly GDP by State statistics
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PCE by State
▪ Beginning stages of development▪ National definitions and controls
provide consistency with NIPAs▪ State-level PCE data issues
Less detailed data for geographic areas
Imputations in NIPAs are challenging at state level
PCE residency adjustment needed for point of sale data
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