Roughly every 5 years, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases comprehensive revisions of its major economic accounts. These revisions are generally more detailed than annual revisions, implementing changes in methods, statistics and definitions to better reflect an ever-evolving economy. In December, BEA will release the 2013 comprehensive revision of the Industry Economic Accounts (IEAs), which includes two main sets of statistics, the annual industry accounts and the benchmark input-output (I-O) accounts. That will follow the release in July of a comprehensive revision of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs), or GDP accounts.
The upcoming comprehensive IEA revision will mark a significant milestone: the full integration of the IEAs with the NIPAs, which was first suggested in a March 2004 article in the Survey of Current Business and later amplified in other articles. This enhanced integration, which has long been recommended by economists, will allow for a higher degree of consistency among these widely followed accounts, offering a more consistent view of industry dynamics within the overall economy.
A preview of the 2013 comprehensive revision of the IEAs was published in the June 2013 issue of the Survey.