Brent Moulton, Associate Director for National Economic Accounts of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), has been selected to receive the 2015 Julius Shiskin Memorial Award for Economic Statistics. The award recognizes unusually original and important contributions in the development of economic statistics or in the use of statistics in interpreting the economy.
Dr. Moulton is recognized for his leadership in implementing major innovations into the U.S. national accounts, international standards for national accounts, and expanded integration of U.S. statistical programs. He is also recognized for his work at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in developing innovations that improved the reliability of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Dr. Moulton is the 43nd recipient of the Award; he will be honored at events hosted by the three sponsors of the award: the Washington Statistical Society, the National Association for Business Economics, and the Business and Economics Section of the American Statistical Association.
At BEA, Dr. Moulton was responsible for the incorporation of innovations into the U.S. national accounts that have kept them up-to-date to the changing U.S. economy. In these and other areas, policymakers, business economists, and academics have applauded Dr. Moulton for providing significantly more accurate and relevant information for monetary policy, tax policy and projections, fiscal policy, and business planning. The innovations incorporated into the accounts included the following:
- Treating research and development (R&D) as an investment rather than as an expense, recognizing its increasingly important contribution to economic growth and productivity. This change added 3% to the official measure of U.S. GDP.
- Expanding BEA’s efforts to extend the incorporation of “intangibles” into the national accounts by recognizing artistic originals as capital assets.
- New methods for measuring the implicit services provided by the banking and insurance industries, providing more comprehensive measurement of output for these industries.
- Quality-adjusted price measures for communications equipment and other high-tech equipment to better capture the rapid improvements in their performance and quality.
Dr. Moulton is recognized for his leadership in the developing improved international standards for national accounts. He was one of the initiators of the 2008 update of the System of National Accounts (SNA), the handbook for GDP measurement prepared by the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank, and the European Union.