BEA’s REGIONAL ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS : AN UPDATE Joel D. Platt C2ER Annual Conference Oklahoma City, OK June 8, 2012

Topics ▪ Budget Update ▪ New Interactive Data Application ▪ Planned Improvements\New Statistics ▪ Questions\Comments 2

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

BEA’s FY 2012 Budget: $92.2 m 4 Industry—$13.2 m (14%) Regional—$16.3 m (18%) International—$31.7 m (34%) National—$31.1 m (34%)

Spending by Category People (69%) Data contracts (2%) Rent (7%) IT (8%) Overhead, other charges (12%) Training (2%) 5

“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) 6

“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) 7

8 New Interactive Application ▪ Interactive tables—the heart of the new application

9 Interactive Tables ▪ Easier to share

10 Interactive Tables ▪ Log-in to save complex tables, charts

11 Interactive Charts ▪ Enhanced features

12 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

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 13

Local Area Personal Income Releases  Advance metro area release  August 9, 2011 (2010)  County compensation release  December 14, 2011 ( )  Local area personal income  April 24, 2012 ( )

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 ( ) ▪ No advance metropolitan area personal income release 15

Price Adjusted Personal Income ▪ Survey of Current Business Article: August 2012 ▪ Experimental Regional Price Parities ▪ Experimental price adjusted state and metropolitan area personal income ( ) 16

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 17

Quarterly GDP by State ▪ Prototype Quarterly GDP by Industry statistics for : Survey of Current Business July 2011 ▪ Prototype Quarterly GDP by Industry for : Survey of Current Business June 2012 ▪ Regional Accounts staff collaborating with Industry staff to develop Prototype Quarterly GDP by State statistics 18

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 19