Overview of BEA's Regional Accounts

							BEA’s Regional Economic
Accounts:
Overview and
Recent Research Activities


                                           Robert L. Brown
  Understanding Regional Economic Data for Policy and Planning
                                                  Dallas, Texas
                                                September 8, 2006
        BEA’s Regional Accounts Data

      Personal income
           State, quarterly and annual
           Local area, annual
              Counties, metro areas, BEA economic areas
      Gross State Product (GSP) by industry
           Annual for 81 industries
      Regional input-output multipliers
           RIMS II
           For user defined regions



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     Uses of BEA’s Regional Accounts
      To distribute over $215 billion in Federal grants to states

      Revenue and expenditure forecasts

      Economic development planning

      New business location and expansion decisions

      Assessment of local impacts of development or disaster

      Econometric forecasting models




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  BEA’s Regional Accounts Initiatives
      Accelerated
       estimates

      New
       statistics

      Improved
       estimates

      Other
       research



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                Accelerated estimates

      Metropolitan area personal income
           From 16 to 9 months after the end of the year
           2005 released September 6
      Gross State Product
           From 17 to 6 months after the end of the year
               June 6 release for 2005 total GSP
               October 26 release for 2005 GSP by industry
      Compensation of employees by industry and
       county
           From 13 to 12 months after the end of the year
           2004 released December 30, 2005



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      New Statistics: Local Area Data

      Metro area disposable personal income
           Researching the estimation of personal
            current taxes for metro areas
               Subtracted from personal income to derive DPI
           Some results…
               Bridgeport, CT per capita personal current
                taxes 16,150—26.1% of personal income
               McAllen, TX per capita personal current taxes
                1,082—7.4 % of personal income



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New Statistics: More Local Area Data

      Gross metro product (GMP)
           Initial estimates—top-down approach:
               Allocate GSP by local area earnings data
           Research into bottom-up approach for
            non-labor part of GMP
               Taxes and gross operating surplus
               Research using sub-state Census Bureau data




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  New Statistics: Longer Time Series

      Carry time series back in time on a NAICS
       basis
           Annual State earnings back to 1990
               In September 2006
               Will evaluate extent of BLS suppressions of W&S for
                counties
           GSP back to 1992
               Requires back-casting Census Bureau data at Center for
                Economic Studies
      Historical GSP on SIC basis
           GSP now released (in April) for 1963 forward



www.bea.gov                                                              8
      New Statistics: Interarea Prices
      Indexes that permit place to place comparisons
       correcting for price level differences
      Jointly with the BLS, using CPI microdata
      Intermediate goal: produce indexes for 38 urban
       areas
           Covers 87 percent of US population
      CPI covers urban areas, so state indexes require
       additional data
      BEA Advisory Committee presentation and Working
       Paper in 2005
      Article scheduled for September Monthly Labor
       Review



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 New Statistics: Alternative Estimates of
     Regional Income and Product
      Develop alternative household income
       measures that better meet user needs
       to:
           Measure spending capacity
           Track tax base
      Develop alternative GSP methodology
       to estimate gross output and
       intermediate expenses


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Improved Estimates: Regional Multipliers

      Improve methods to “regionalize” the
       national input-output accounts
      Capture interregional flows of goods and
       people
      Produce value-added multipliers
           In addition to gross output multipliers currently
            produced
      Much of this research will be undertaken
       with Commodity Flow Survey microdata
           At the Census Bureau’s Center for Economic
            Studies



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   Improved Estimates: New Source Data

      IRS Information Returns data
           Potential information on
               Pension disbursements and roll-overs to aid in
                estimating alternative income measures
               Non-filers who receive information returns but don’t
                need to file tax returns
           Information to reconcile state personal income
            with adjusted gross income
      Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
       data for estimating employers’ contributions
       to health insurance
           Provide better interarea variation on health
            insurance contributions


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               Other Research

      Intra-industry Trade among states
      The American Community Survey (ACS)
       and the Local Employment Dynamics
       (LED) datasets as substitutes for the
       decennial Census long-form
      Interactive Web-based state and
       county personal income mapping



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              Regional Working Papers and
              Presentations in One Location
     Go To: BEA
      Home
     Regional
     Articles Tool
      Bar
     Regional
      Working
      Papers and
      Presentations


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                        Questions?

      Contact:
               Robert L, Brown
               202.606.9246
               Robert.brown@bea.gov




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