1. www.bea.gov The Role of Statistics in the United States’ Economic Future “Statistics for policymaking: Europe 2020” Eurostat March 10th, 2011 J. Steven Landefeld, Director Bureau of Economic Analysis

2. www.bea.gov 2 The Need for Better Economics (and Better Data?)

3. www.bea.gov 3 How Did We “Miss” the Housing Bubble? Source: BEA NIPA data, Federal Reserve Board Flow of Funds data, Case-Shiller index -10 city composite index

4. www.bea.gov 4 Capital Gains, Savings and Consumer Spending: Bursting the Bubble Source: BEA NIPA data & Federal Reserve Board Flow of Funds data

5. www.bea.gov Why Is GDP Up, but America is Down?

6. www.bea.gov 6 How Did We “Miss” the Stock Price Bubble? Source: BEA NIPA data, Standard and Poor’s data

7. www.bea.gov What Excess Leverage? Total financial assets / total liabilities [ratio] Source: BEA & Federal Reserve Board Flow of Funds data

8. www.bea.gov 8 Why We Need to Look at Sustainable Investment Source: BEA NIPA data

9. www.bea.gov What Are the Returns from R&D? ▪ Results from BEA’s 2010 R&D Satellite Account:  Between 1959-2007, R&D accounted for 5.2 percent of growth in real GDP.  Between 1998-2007, R&D’s contribution rose to 6.8 percent; in comparison, business investment in commercial and all other types of buildings accounted for just over 1 percent of real GDP growth.  R&D’s stepped-up contribution is almost as large as the contribution of computers in the existing GDP measure.

10. www.bea.gov The Need for More Accurate Health Care Data