Major changes in definitions and classifications:
- Recognize the implicit services provided by property and casualty insurance and provide a more appropriate treatment of insured losses, thereby reducing large swings in measured services;
- Allocate a portion of the implicit services of commercial banks to borrowers, thereby recognizing that both borrowers and depositors receive these services from banks;
- Recognize explicitly the services produced by general government and treat government purchases of goods and services as intermediate inputs; and
- Broaden the definition of national income to include all net incomes (net of consumption of fixed capital) earned in production.
Other changes in definitions and classifications:
- Reclassify Indian tribal governments, farm housing services, owner-occupied housing services, and rental value of fixed assets used by nonprofit institutions serving households in order to improve conformity with other BEA accounts and with accounts of other agencies and make the NIPA's more usable;
- Reclassify certain NIPA components—including miscellaneous compensation, nonresident taxes, business and personal nontax payments, and government current receipts and expenditures—in order to improve consistency with international guidelines;
- Split the NIPA foreign transactions account into two accounts—the foreign transactions current account and the foreign transactions capital account—in order to separately identify capital transfers;
- Introduce several new aggregates that will provide alternative measures of income, saving, and investment;
- Redefine change in private farm inventories to include farm materials and supplies, thereby improving the measures of GDP and gross farm product;
- Reclassify military grants-in-kind to improve consistency between the NIPA's and BEA's international transactions accounts (ITA's); and
- Redefine compensation-in-kind of Federal Government employees to include mass transit benefits.
For a comprehensive summary of changes that were introduced in the comprehensive revision, see Preview of the 2003 Comprehensive Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts: Changes in Definitions and Classifications, Brent R. Moulton and Eugene P. Seskin, Survey of Current Business, June 2003 [PDF ]
Published