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

2 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

3 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

4 BEA’s Regional Accounts Initiatives  Accelerated estimates  New statistics  Improved estimates  Other research

5 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

6 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

7 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

8 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

9 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

10 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

11 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

12 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

13 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

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

15 Questions?  Contact:  Robert L, Brown  