Papers
This page provides access to papers and presentations prepared by BEA staff. Abstracts are presented in HTML format; complete papers are in PDF format with selected tables in XLS format. The views expressed in these papers are solely those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis or the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Engines of Leisure
U.S. time use patterns have changed over the last century in ways that appear inconsistent. Leisure has increased with income but has increased most for the poorest. I develop a unified model that treats leisure as an economic activity. Leisure services are produced using capital, like… Read more
Adjusting Health Expenditures for Inflation: A Review of Measures for Health Services Research in the United States
Objective. To provide guidance on selecting the most appropriate price index for adjusting health expenditures or costs for inflation.
Data Sources. Major price index series produced by federal statistical agencies.
Study Design. We compare the key characteristics of each index… Read more
Depreciation of Business R&D Capital
We develop a forward-looking profit model to estimate the depreciation rates of business R&D capital. By using data from Compustat, BEA, and NSF between 1987 and 2008, and the newly developed model, we estimate both constant and time-varying industry-specific R&D depreciation rates. The… Read more
A Research Agenda for Measuring GDP at the County Level
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes gross domestic product (GDP) statistics for the nation, states, and metropolitan areas. GDP by county statistics would provide a much richer picture of the geographic distribution of the nation’s economic activity to assist analysts in the… Read more
Quasi-Corporations and Institutional Sectors in the U.S. National Accounts
The System of National Accounts (SNA) classifies each resident institutional unit to one of five institutional sectors. The corporations sector in the SNA includes a concept of quasi-corporations, which are unincorporated enterprises that have no legal status separate from… Read more
Valuing 'Free' Media in GDP: An Experimental Approach
‘Free’ consumer entertainment and information from the Internet, largely supported by advertising revenues, has had a major impact on consumer behavior. Some economists believe that gross domestic product (GDP) growth is badly underestimated because GDP excludes online entertainment (… Read more
Residual Seasonality in GDP and GDI: Findings and Next Steps
This paper presents the results of a component-by-component review of seasonally adjusted estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) and gross domestic income (GDI), two widely followed economic measures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The goal of the review was to test… Read more
Correcting for the 2007 MEPS Discontinuity in Medical Condition Spending and Treated Prevalence
Under a contract with the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Altarum has updated estimates of spending by medical condition that were first published in 2009 and that covered the years 1996 through 2005. In this update, data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) were used to allocate… Read more
FDI and the Task Content of Domestic Employment for U.S. Multinationals
Using a unique dataset, we examine how the foreign direct investment activities of U.S. multinational manufacturers are related to the composition of their domestic employment. The analysis is based on a dataset in which Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) firm-level data on the foreign operations… Read more
Net Investment and Stocks of Human Capital in the United States, 1975-2013
This study continues the research initiated in Christian (2010, 2014) on measurement of human capital stocks and investment in the United States. It measures a series of human capital stock and net investment from 1975 to 2013, using the lifetime earnings approach of Jorgenson and Fraumeni (1989… Read more