In preparing for the 1999 comprehensive revision of the national income and product accounts (NIPA’s), BEA conducted research focused on two possible changes to the treatment of banking imputation: changing the method for separating "real" (i.e., quantity) changes from price changes for this...

This paper discusses the classification in the U.S. international economic accounts of borderline cases between direct investment and other types of investment. In the fifth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5), one of the key steps forward was in the provision of uniform guidelines...

This paper provides background information on the new economy and how it relates to BEA’s economic accounts. It is designed to answer the following questions: What is the new economy? Why is it important that the new economy be captured in GDP and BEA’s other economic accounts estimates?...

BEA’s International Accounts Directorate is responsible for preparing the nation’s estimates of the international transactions accounts, international investment position, and operations of U.S. parent companies and U.S. and foreign affiliates, and for preparing analyses of major...

Recent theoretical work tends to characterize multinational enterprises as arising through either horizontal or vertical foreign direct investment (FDI). Empirical research tends to find stronger support for the former than for the latter. In this paper, we use recent, detailed data on U.S....

Since the United Nations introduced the nonsymmetrical make-use input-output (I-O) tables in 1968, there have been on-going discussions about ways to translate them into symmetric I-O tables. The discussions have focused on secondary products that cause the asymmetry between industries and...

The comprehensive benchmark revision of the national income and product accounts (NIPA’s), released in October of last year, newly recognized business and government expenditures for computer software as investment. This paper describes the methodology for annual and quarterly estimates of...

The timeliness of the U.S. input-output (I-O) accounts is a major concern for policymakers and industry analysts, as well as academics. In response, the Bureau of Economic Analysis initiated research in 2001 to identify, develop and implement an estimating method for producing more timely and...