U.S. Benchmark Input-Output Accounts: Data and methods Comments on “China’s Input-Output Survey and Its Tabulation Method” Brian C. Moyer 13 th OECD-NBS Workshop on National Accounts Haikou, China November 30 – December 4, 2009

2 U.S. I-O Accounts Benchmark I-O Accounts Based primarily on Economic Census data Prepared every five years 400 industries and commodities Annual I-O Accounts Rely heavily on benchmark I-O accounts Based on annual survey data 65 industries and commodities

3 Census data supplemented with … Annual survey data Business expenses data Data from the tax authority Administrative data Trade association data Data from other government agencies

4 Building the benchmark accounts Output by industry and commodity Intermediate purchases by industry Value added by industry Final uses; transportation and trade margins Reconciliation and balancing

5 Industry and commodity output Industry output Establishment based Classified by NAICS Includes all production activities—primary and secondary Commodity output Prepared on a “where-ever-made” basis For example, car repair services include all receipts for car repair, regardless of whether the service is performed in the auto repair industry, by gasoline service stations, or by automotive dealers

6 Output by sector Agriculture: receipts Utilities: receipts Manufacturing: shipments Trade: margin = sales - cost of goods Services: receipts Non-profits and auxiliaries: expenses

7 Adjustments to Census data Non-employers Imputations Tips Misreporting/non-filers Sales and excise taxes

8 Coverage gaps Sectors not covered by the Economic Census Agriculture U.S. Postal Service Rail transportation Education Religious organizations Labor unions

9 Make table

10 Intermediate purchases Input category controls Census data on broad groups of commodities purchased by industries—materials consumed, legal services, advertising, repair services, rental, etc. Variety of additional data used from other government agencies, trade associations, etc. Detailed intermediate purchases by industry at the transactions level

11 Value added by industry Value added = Gross Output – Intermediate Inputs Value added = Compensation + Gross Operating Surplus + Taxes on production

12 Quality weighting Reliability indicators assigned to components of intermediate inputs and gross operating surplus by industry—in most cases, coefficients of variation I-O constraints imposed Less reliable components of value added adjust more; more reliable components adjust less

13 Quality-weighted results

14 Final uses Estimated in one of two ways Directly from Economic Census data using “class of customer” data Indirectly using commodity-flow method Consumer purchases = shipments + imports – exports – intermediate purchases – government purchases - change in inventories – investment in equipment + margin + transportation costs

15 Distribution of margins Transportation, wholesale trade, and retail trade output distributed to commodities based on a variety of data sources Transportation: commodity flow survey Wholesale trade: product-line sales by type of wholesaler Retail trade: product-line sales by type of retailer Margin distributed to detailed commodities based on levels of transactions

16 Use table

17 Reconciliation and balancing Value added reconciled with Industry Accounts; final uses reconciled with National Accounts Balancing Based on RAS procedure—scaling of transactions High-quality cells are “frozen” Output i = Inputs i + Value added i Total commodity output = Total industry output Total final uses = total value added = GDP