Measurement of Banking Services in the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts: Recent Changes and Outstanding Issue

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 service, and changing the method for allocating the consumption of the imputed service to the various users of the service. Only the first of these research projects was successful, in the sense that an improved methodology for real banking services was adopted and implemented. This paper summarizes the two research projects, the new methodology, and the outstanding issues.