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U.S. Benchmark Input-Output Accounts: Data and methods

Comments on “China’s Input-Output Survey and Its Tabulation Method”

Brian C. Moyer13th OECD-NBS Workshop on National Accounts

Haikou, China

November 30 – December 4, 2009

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U.S. I-O Accounts

• Benchmark I-O Accounts• Based primarily on Economic Census data• Prepared every five years• 400 industries and commodities

• Annual I-O Accounts• Rely heavily on benchmark I-O accounts• Based on annual survey data• 65 industries and commodities

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Census data supplemented with …

• Annual survey data

• Business expenses data

• Data from the tax authority

• Administrative data

• Trade association data

• Data from other government agencies

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Building the benchmark accounts

• Output by industry and commodity

• Intermediate purchases by industry

• Value added by industry

• Final uses; transportation and trade margins

• Reconciliation and balancing

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Industry and commodity output

• Industry output • Establishment based• Classified by NAICS• Includes all production activities—primary

and secondary

• Commodity output Prepared on a “where-ever-made” basis

For example, car repair services include all receipts for car repair, regardless of whether the service is performed in the auto repair industry, by gasoline service stations, or by automotive dealers

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Output by sector

• Agriculture: receipts

• Utilities: receipts

• Manufacturing: shipments

• Trade: margin = sales - cost of goods

• Services: receipts

• Non-profits and auxiliaries: expenses

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Adjustments to Census data

• Non-employers

• Imputations

• Tips

• Misreporting/non-filers

• Sales and excise taxes

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Coverage gaps

Sectors not covered by the Economic Census• Agriculture• U.S. Postal Service• Rail transportation• Education • Religious organizations• Labor unions

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Mining and Construction

ManufacturingTrade and

TransportationUtilities

Finance, Insurance, and

Real EstateOther

Mining and Construction

Manufacturing

Trade and Transportation

Utilities

Finance, Insurance, and

Real Estate

Other

COMMODITIES

Total Industry Output

IND

US

TR

IES

Total Commodity Output

Make table

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Intermediate purchases

• Input category controls• Census data on broad groups of commodities

purchased by industries—materials consumed, legal services, advertising, repair services, rental, etc.

• Variety of additional data used from other government agencies, trade associations, etc.

• Detailed intermediate purchases by industry at the transactions level

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Value added by industry

• Value added = Gross Output – Intermediate

Inputs

• Value added = Compensation + Gross Operating

Surplus + Taxes on production

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Quality weighting

• Reliability indicators assigned to components of intermediate inputs and gross operating surplus by industry—in most cases, coefficients of variation

• I-O constraints imposed

• Less reliable components of value added adjust more; more reliable components adjust less

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Quality-weighted results

59,000 60,000 61,000 62,000 63,000 64,000 65,000 66,000 67,000

Value added (Millions of dollars)

Income-based

Combined

Production-based

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Final uses

• Estimated in one of two ways• Directly from Economic Census data using

“class of customer” data• Indirectly using commodity-flow method

Consumer purchases = shipments + imports –

exports – intermediate purchases – government purchases - change in inventories –

investment in equipment + margin + transportation costs

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Distribution of margins

• Transportation, wholesale trade, and retail trade output distributed to commodities based on a variety of data sources• Transportation: commodity flow survey• Wholesale trade: product-line sales by type of

wholesaler• Retail trade: product-line sales by type of retailer

• Margin distributed to detailed commodities based on levels of transactions

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Use table

Mining and Construction

ManufacturingTrade and

TransportationUtilities

Finance, Insurance, and

Real EstateOther

Personal Consumption Expenditure

Private Fixed Investment

Change in Private

InventoriesNet Exports

Government Consumption

and Investment

Mining and Construction

Manufacturing

Trade and Transportation

Utilities

Finance, Insurance, and

Real Estate

Other

Compensation

Taxes on Production and

Imports

Gross Operating Surplus

Total Commodity Output and

Value Added

CO

MM

OD

ITIE

S

Total Industry Output and Final Uses

VA

LUE

AD

DE

D

FINAL USESINDUSTRIES

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Reconciliation and balancing

• Value added reconciled with Industry Accounts; final uses reconciled with National Accounts

• Balancing• Based on RAS procedure—scaling of

transactions• High-quality cells are “frozen”

• Outputi = Inputsi + Value addedi

• Total commodity output = Total industry output

• Total final uses = total value added = GDP