Bureau of Economic Analysis

36 Mid-Decade Strategic Review of BEA’s Economic Accounts: Maintaining and Improving Their Performance (PDF)

BEA has undertaken a comprehensive review of the U.S. economic accounts–national, international, and regional. The Review consists of three steps: Preparation of a series of background papers to evaluate the state of the accounts, development of a draft plan–presented in this article–to maintain and improve the accounts, and solicitation of outside comment and discussion to help shape and refine the final plan. The Review is an integral part of BEA’s overall plan to achieve its goal of providing customers with the right numbers at the right time in the right way.

BEA has grouped the Nation’s counties and metropolitan areas into 172 economic areas for use in regional economic analysis. This set of areas, which replaces an earlier set of 183 areas, reflects the incorporation of newly available information on commuting patterns and of refinements in the procedure for defining these areas. Each of the BEA economic areas includes, as far as possible, the place of work and the place of residence of its labor force.

Regular features

1 Business Situation (PDF)

According to the "preliminary" estimates for the fourth quarter of 1994, real GDP increased 4.6 percent after increasing 4.0 percent in the third quarter and 4.1 percent in the second. The "preliminary" estimate of GDP growth was little changed from that shown by the "advance" estimate issued a month earlier; however, final sales of domestic product was revised up substantially, while inventory accumulation was revised down substantially.

In BEA’s annual "translation" of the administration’s budget, the Federal deficit on a NIPA basis rises to $187.9 billion in fiscal year 1996 from $173.7 billion in fiscal year 1995. Before translation, the budget shows the deficit rising to $196.6 billion from $192.5 billion.

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