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 GDP and Beyond: Measuring Economic Progress and Sustainability
J. Steven Landefeld, Director, BEA
Shaunda M. Villones, Economist, BEA

Bureau of Economic Analysis

U.S. Department of Commerce
Washington D.C. 20230
Phone: (202) 606-9600

DRAFT as of October 30, 2009

This working paper has benefited from comments and suggestions from Rosemary
Marcuss, Brent Moulton, Joel Platt, and James Kim. The paper remains a work in process
and further comments and suggestions from BEA staff and others are welcome.

The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and not necessarily of
the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis or the U.S. Department of Commerce.

1
The United States possesses some of the most highly developed sets of gross domestic
product (GDP) accounts in the world. These accounts—which are collectively know as
the national income product and wealth accounts or national accounts—have been
regularly updated over the years and have well served researchers, the business
community, and policymakers alike. However, since their inception in the 1930s, the
economy has continuously evolved, and issues have been raised about the scope and
structure of the national accounts. Simon Kuznets (1941), one of the early architects of
the accounts, recognized the limitations of focusing on market activities and excluding
household production and a broad range of other nonmarket activities and assets that
have productive value or yield satisfaction. Further, the need to better understand the
sources of economic growth in the postwar era led to the development (much of it by
academic researchers) of various supplemental series, such as the contributions of
investments in human capital and natural resources to economic growth.

More recently, concerns have been raised about the adequacy of the national accounts in
capturing the differential impact of the current recession across households, industries,
and regions of the country. Other concerns include the failure of the existing national
accounts to provide adequate warning about the imbalances that developed in housing
and financial markets.

This article explores each of these issues and relates them to the need for expanded or
supplementary measures for the national accounts, highlighting what such estimates
might reveal relative to the conventional statistics presented by GDP and other aggregate
statistics from the accounts. In particular, it explores how the accounts might be extended
to provide new measures of: a) how growth in incomes are distributed across households,
other sectors, and across regions; and b) the sustainability of trends in saving, investment,
asset prices, and other key variables important to understanding business cycles and the
sources of economic growth.

Broad Social Accounts

Kuznet’s concern’s about the exclusion of a broader set activities from the national
accounts has been echoed over the ages, notably by Robert F. Kennedy in his eloquent
critique of GDP (née GNP) as a measure of society’s progress:

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and
community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national
product, if we should judge America by that, counts air pollution and cigarette
advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks
for our doors…Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our
children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play…it measures
everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us
everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

-- Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas,

March 18, 1968

2
 This concern has remained an issue, and at his inaugural address, President Obama
said:

“The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross
domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend
opportunity to every willing heart— not out of charity, but because it is the surest
route to our common good.”

-- President Barak Obama, Inaugural Address, Washington D.C.,

January 20, 2009

The recent Report on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress
(Stiglitz, Sen, Fitoussi, 2009) addressed these issues. The Chair of the Commission that
produced the report, Joseph Stiglitz, summarized the conclusions as follows:

“The big question concerns whether GDP provides a good measure of living
standards. In many cases, GDP statistics seem to suggest that the economy is doing
far better than most citizens' own perceptions. Moreover, the focus on GDP creates
conflicts: political leaders are told to maximize it, but citizens also demand that
attention be paid to enhancing security, reducing pollution, and so forth - all of which
might lower GDP growth.

“The fact that GDP may be a poor measure of well-being, or even of market activity,
has, of course, long been recognized. But changes in society and the economy may
have heightened the problems, at the same time that advances in economics and
statistical techniques may have provided opportunities to improve our metrics.”

-- Joseph Stiglitz, The Economist’s Voice, September, 2009

Work by Alan Krueger, Daniel Kahneman et al. are the most recent comprehensive
attempt to develop a broader measure of social welfare. Their “Time-Use Accounts”
develop a measure of happiness based on survey data on time use and happiness in
different activities.1 Their accounts represent a significant step forward in the long quest
to develop a broader measure of social welfare. It illustrates the progress that can be
made by having such research conducted by a multidisciplinary team of independent
researchers from academia. It also is an example of the problems that can be avoided by
developing an entirely new measure with its own framework, concepts, and methods
rather than trying to expand GDP.

1
Kruger, Kahneman, Schkade, Schwartz, and Stone (forthcoming National Bureau of Economic Research
volume). The volume also includes analyses and critiques of the time use accounts, including one
comparing the time use accounts to existing national accounts, see chapter: National Time Accounting and
National Economic Accounting by J. Steven Landefeld.

3
Past efforts to expand conventional GDP have foundered on the inevitable problems of
subjectivity and uncertainty inherent in measuring health, happiness, and the
environment.2 Critics feared that the inclusion of such uncertain and subjective values in
GDP would seriously diminish the essential role of the national accounts to financial
markets, the Federal Reserve Board, the Treasury, and the Congress in measuring and
managing the market economy.

In recognition of these difficulties, several National Academy of Sciences studies on

accounting for the environment and nonmarket production and the System of National
Accounts (1993) guidelines for compiling GDP have all concluded that an expansion of
the GDP accounts should take place in supplemental, or satellite, accounts that extend the
scope of the accounts without reducing the usefulness of the core GDP accounts.3 They
also conclude that such an expansion should focus on economic aspects of nonmarket and
near-market activities—such as energy and the economy’s use of natural resources, the
impact of investments in research and development (R&D), health care, or education—
and not attempt to measure the welfare effect of such interactions.

Finally, such an expansion of work would require interdisciplinary research between

economists and such subject area experts as epidemiologists, physicians, geologists, and
engineers in other government agencies to measure the relationship between air pollution
and human health and medical expenditures or between petroleum extraction, changes in
technology and reserves. It would also require the design, development, and collection of
data from new surveys. In an environment of large competing demands on scarce
resources, it is critical that such an expansion of the scope of the accounts not occur at the
expense of funds needed to maintain, update, and improve the existing GDP accounts.

In recognition of the subjectivity, uncertainty, and resources involved in producing

expanded welfare and nonmarket accounts, there is increasing interest in “new” estimates
that could be produced with information currently used to produce the existing accounts.
For example, the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission (2009), which explored expanded
welfare measures, has suggested a number of ways that “classical GDP issues” can be
addressed within existing GDP accounts or through an extension and improvement of
measures included in existing accounts.

What Can Be Done Within the Scope of the Existing Accounts?

Although BEA has conducted research on a number of nonmarket satellite accounts and
is currently at work on several market-related satellite accounts (for health care and
R&D), relatively little attention has been paid to what can be done within the scope of the

2
Work such as Tobin and Nordhaus (1973), the UN System of Social Accounts, the Genuine Progress
Indicator, and the World Bank Development Indicators are examples of the range of efforts to been
designed to spur further work on the regular production of broader measures of social welfare.
3
United Nations, Commission of the European Communities, International Monetary Fund, Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development and World Bank (1993), Abraham & Mackie (2005) and
Nordhaus and Kokkelenberg, eds. (1999).

4
existing accounts to produce more relevant statistics.4 For example, for many households,
the performance of GDP over the last decade (1998–2008) does not seem to square with
their personal experience. The growth in their take-home pay and bills seems to be very
different from the growth of officially reported “real” disposable income. Yet data are
readily available from BEA’s national accounts on the breakdown of incomes, taxes,
consumer outlays, and the prices households confront. That data can be used to construct
an estimate of real “discretionary” income that comes closer to what the average
household is experiencing. Further information from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and
other existing data could provide further insights into the distributions of household
incomes.

Using existing statistics from BEA’s accounts and data used in their development, it is
possible to construct other new measures—and to highlight existing subcomponents of
GDP—that would provide better indicators of, among other things, the differential impact
of GDP growth across states, the sustainability of U.S. GDP growth, the adequacy of
saving and investment, and emerging risks to the economy.

The next section of this paper discuss new measures of the distribution of growth across
households, across regions of the country, and across different types of businesses. The
last section of the paper discusses new measures of the sustainability of trends in
investment, saving, asset values, and finance.

The Distribution of the Growth in Incomes Across

Households, Regions, and Businesses

Household Income
The explanations for many of the differences between individual experiences of
households and the picture of the economy captured in GDP, personal income and other
aggregate statistics can be found by drilling down below the aggregate information in the
national accounts and looking at the detailed components and supporting detail.

Compensation. Growth in real GDP, real disposable income, and real compensation
must be first put on a per capita or per worker basis to reflect something closer to the
average worker’s experience. Part of the growth in production and incomes simply
reflects the growth in the labor force and that larger wage bill must be distributed across a
larger labor force.

Workers and households also confront different prices than producers, and at times, these
prices are quite different. For example, between the first quarter of 2007 and the third
quarter 2008, rapid increases in energy costs resulted in consumer inflation, as measured

4
For more information on BEA’s satellite account work see the following; IEESAs: Landefeld. & Carson
(1994), Household Production: Landefeld, Fraumeni and Vojech (2009) and Landefeld & McCulla (2000),
Transportation: Bingsong, Han, Okubo and Lawson (2000), Ownership Balance of Payments: Lowe
(2009), R&D: Okubo, Robbins, Moylan, Sliker, Shultz and Mataloni (2006), Health: Aizcorbe, Retus and
Smith (2008).

5
by BEA’s personal consumption expenditures price index, that rose at an average annual
rate of 3.9 percent. In contrast, overall GDP inflation, which excludes the price of
petroleum and other imports, rose at an average annual rate of 2.3 percent. As a result,
growth in real GDP was 1.6 percentage points higher than the growth rate in real
disposable income.

Taxes and noncash benefits also drive a wedge between the aggregates and the average
workers’ experience. BEA’s measure of disposable income addresses the tax issue by
deducting taxes paid by households on their income. However, an alternate cash measure
of disposable income would also deduct employer contributions to pension funds and
contributions for health insurance and other benefits.5 These payments by employers are
a real cost of production (which must be recorded in the double-entry NIPAs as income)
and a real value to the employee. But when constructing a measure of cash income, non-
cash payments by employers that are not available for current consumption should
probably be deducted along with taxes. Because of the strong growth in employer
“supplements,” payments by employers for pensions, health insurance plans, and
government social insurance, the difference between total compensation and “take-home
pay” can be large. Between 1967 and 2007, supplements, after adjustment for inflation,
grew at an average annual rate of 3 percent, while real wages and salaries grew at an
average annual rate of 1 percent.

Chart 1 illustrates the different perspectives on the economy that emerges by looking
“below” the headline numbers. Between 2000 and 2007, the headline number for real
GDP grew at a 2.4 percent annual rate, real compensation grew at a 2.7 percent annual
rate, and real disposable personal income grew at a 2.1 percent annual rate.

Chart 1. Real GDP, real disposable personal income and real compensation

3.0 2.7
2.4
2.5 2.1
2.0
1.5
Percent

1.0 0.4 0.5

0.5
0.0
‐0.5
‐1.0
‐1.5 ‐1.0
Avg. growth, 2000‐2007 2008

Real GDP Real Disposable Personal Income Real Compensation

Source: BEA NIPA data

5
It would also exclude the interest and dividends earned by pension funds earned by pension funds, which
are included in personal income as part of personal interest and dividend income.

6
In comparison, over the same period, below–the-headline numbers grew more slowly,
with real compensation per worker growing at an average annual rate of 1.5 percent, real
wages per worker at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent, and real disposable personal
income per person growing at an average annual rate of 1.8 percent.

Chart 2. Spendable income

2.0 1.8
1.5
1.5
1.1
1.0
Percent

0.5

0.0

‐0.5
‐0.4
‐0.5
‐0.7
‐1.0
Avg. growth, 2000‐2007 2008

Real DPI per capita Real Compensation per worker Real Wages per worker

Source: BEA NIPA data

Personal Income. Household income, or what BEA calls personal income, is a broader
measure than employment income and measures all income to households, including rent,
interest income, dividends, and transfer payments. Transfer payments—such as social
security, Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and other government
programs—are important additions to the picture of household income. Because these
payments tend to be countercyclical, they have a large effect on growth in household
income. The addition of transfer payments and other incomes is an important adjustment
in moving from compensation and production to a broader measure of household well
being. But what else is needed?

Disposable income, transfers, and the business cycle. BEA’s existing accounts provide
two adjustments to household income that are good first steps in providing a measure of
households’ economic welfare. One adjustment deducts taxes paid by households and
provides a measure of disposable personal income, that is, the after-tax income available
for consumption or saving. The other adjustment, a relatively new one, deducts transfer
payments in order to provide a better picture of the state of the private economy over the
course of the business cycle. This measure was introduced in the August 2009
comprehensive revision of the national income and product accounts.

7
In 2008, transfer payments and lower taxes associated with the economic stimulus acts
helped boost real disposable personal income per capita. In 2008, personal transfer
payments increased $157.9 billion. Of that amount, approximately $30 billion were for
rebates to persons under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. The same act reduced
personal current taxes $65.7 billion and more than accounted for the overall decrease in
personal taxes of $58.5 billion in 2008. These counter-cyclical transfers can obscure
changes in the components of income over the course of the business cycle, and they
along with other transfer payments can cause differences across payers and recipients of
the transfers that are not reflected in the existing NIPA income aggregates.

As can be seen in Chart 3, real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.4 percent over
the last decade, and real disposable personal income grew at a 2.7 percent rate. Over the
same period, real disposable income per capita grew at 1.8 percent rate, and real
disposable personal income less transfers grew at 1.5 percent rate. The counter cyclical
effect of government spending in 2008—discouraged elderly workers deciding to “retire”
and sign up for social security and Medicare benefits and larger and longer claims for
unemployment—is quite evident in the data for 2008; real disposable personal income
per capita contracted 0.4 percent; excluding transfers, real disposable personal income
fell 1.4 percent.

Chart 3. Household income: Alternative measures

3.0 2.7
2.4
2.5

2.0 1.8
1.5
1.5

1.0
Percent

0.4 0.5
0.5

0.0

‐0.5
‐0.4
‐1.0

‐1.5
‐1.4
‐2.0
Avg. growth, 2000‐2007 2008

Real GDP Real DPI Real DPI per capita Real DPI less transfers per capita

Source: BEA NIPA data.

8
Discretionary income. A useful extension beyond BEA’s disposable income would be a
measure of both the economic welfare of the average household and their ability to spend
on “big-ticket” items over the course of the business cycles. Discretionary income
measures the income left over after paying for “basic” household expenses. Another
words, it measures the money that households can use for such items as college
educations, autos, vacations, and entertainment or for saving.

In developing such a measure, the main question is what should be deducted as spending
on the basics? The poverty literature is instructive in answering this question. The
National Academy of Sciences Report on Measuring Poverty (1995) and a recent study
by Blank and Greenburg (2008) on “Improving the Measurement of Poverty” suggest that
thresholds be set in determining how much of spending on a set of necessities should be
deducted from after-tax cash income to arrive at what they call “adjusted disposable
income.” These thresholds might be set using data from the BLS Consumer Expenditure
Spending (CES) survey on spending by lower income households, perhaps households
with incomes between the 30th and 35th percentile, on such necessities as food, shelter,
clothing, transportation, utilities, and medical care. These income-adjusted thresholds,
which could be used in determining poverty, a measure of economic deprivation, differ
from a discretionary income measure, or what Blank and Greenberg describe as a
measure of whether the average family is facing “economic stress.”

Discretionary income, which is often confused with disposable income, is also used by
investment firms to estimate funds available for saving or investment, by banks and credit
card companies to estimate a customers ability to take on mortgages and additional
consumer debt, by marketers to identify households with discretionary income to spend
on their products, and by individuals and retirement planners to build investment and
retirement plans and budgets. The definitions of discretionary income that are used are
quite similar to those used in the poverty literature: income after taxes and spending on
basic expenses such as rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, medical, transportation,
child care, property maintenance, and food. 6

Deducting the amount that consumers actually spend on such goods and services as food,
shelter, and medical care offers a notion of what households’ have left over to spend on
more discretionary items. This measure does not aim to determine how much spending on
clothes or houses is necessary. Indeed, if a household bought “too much” house, the fixed
mortgage and other expenses for that house would be deducted along with all other
households’ spending for housing. That might be seen as appropriate, however, in trying
6
For an example of the common definition of discretionary income, see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable/Discretionary_income; for a business definitions, see
www.investorwords.com/1483/discretionary_income.html, or
www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discretionary-income.html; or
www.investopedia.com/terms/d/discretionaryincome.asp?&viewed=1.
An alternative definition, sometimes used in special studies is those individuals with
incomes significantly higher than those of households with similar demographic
characteristics (Census Bureau and Conference Board, 1989).

9
to identify the expenses that are, in short-run at least, somewhat fixed, or less
discretionary than other goods and services.

Exactly what should be deducted in deriving discretionary income will require further
study. The definition will reflect the purpose of the measure. If the purpose is to derive a
measure of growth in household income, then the items to be deducted might be defined
as a group of basic goods. Such goods account for a smaller share of spending by higher
income households than for lower income households. However, if the measure is
intended as a measure for business cycle analysis, the definition might focus on goods
and services whose share of spending tends to rise during downturns in economic activity
as shrinking incomes cause households to reduce their spending on discretionary
spending more than their spending on the basics.

In addition to addressing the issue of the purpose of the measure, the definition of
discretionary income will need to take into account the balance among complexity and
accuracy and relevance. A simpler formulation that captures most of the desired
characteristics and includes a list of what consumers intuitively think of as spending on
the basics is more likely to be accepted and used than a complex and difficult to
understand measure. Also, a simple indicator has the advantage of using monthly and
quarterly data available from the NIPAs and can thus be used to efficiently provide
regularly updated and easy to understand estimates of discretionary income.

Chart 4 illustrates what real discretionary income might look like. Over the last business
cycle, the aggregate measure of growth, real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.4
percent. Real disposable income per capita, however, grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate,
and real discretionary income per capita grew at an average annual rate of 1.9 percent.
This larger growth rate reflects the lower inflation rate in discretionary income, which
excludes energy costs, than in disposable income; in nominal terms, discretionary income
grew 4.9 percent, while disposable income grew 5.1 percent. During the economic
downturn of 2008, the differences are larger. Real GDP rose 0.4 percent, and real
disposable personal income per capita fell 0.4 percent. Real discretionary income per
capita fell 1.4 percent.

In addition to the differences in growth rates, there are significant level differences
between disposable and discretionary income. Between 2000 and 2007, average real
disposable personal income per capita was $30,770, while average discretionary income
was 47 percent or $14,437 lower.

Discretionary income might prove helpful in assessing the spending that households have
available to increase spending and saving over time and over the course of the business
cycle. Given the larger differences between the 2008 estimates and those during the last
expansion, the larger estimates of discretionary income is likely to be in household
purchasing power during downturns and upturns in economic activity. Such estimates
would be especially helpful if paired with the type of integrated financial and household
statistics described below to analyze changes in saving, debt, and net worth.

10
Chart 4. Real GDP & real discretionary income7

3.0
2.4
2.5
1.8 1.9
2.0
1.5
1.0
Percent

0.4
0.5
0.0
‐0.5
‐0.4
‐1.0
‐1.5
‐1.4
‐2.0
Avg. growth, 2000‐2007 2008

Real GDP Real DPI per capita Real discretionary income per capita

Source: Experimental estimates based on existing BEA NIPA data

Cash income. As noted above in the section on employment income, cash income (after
the deduction of taxes and noncash income such as supplements) may be seen as a useful
measure of resources that households perceive as available for current-period
consumption and saving. However, actually calculating such a measure such as
discretionary income would be difficult and would require disaggregation and separate
estimates for different groups. For example, the discretionary income of working and
retired workers might look quite different. Working families’ cash incomes would be
reduced by taxes and contributions to pensions and health plans, while retired
households’ cash incomes would be raised by transfer payments and pension payments.
Further, working households may have higher spending on housing and other the basics
relative to retired households. Such decomposition is possible, but would require income,
spending, and transfer payment data from such sources as the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS) Survey of Consumer Expenditures, IRS data, Census Bureau CES data, and
federal and state and local budget and program information.

Distribution of Incomes. Per capita or average measures of income often do not

accurately reflect the economic position of the median household. Adding information on
the distribution of income to the national income accounts could significantly aid in
tracking the distribution of the gains from economic growth. The ability to decompose
growth in the context of the national accounts is especially useful because the accounts
provide the broadest available picture of incomes. This value of income includes the non-
cash value of housing, financial, and other services, as well as noncash employer

7
Discretionary income refers to income generated from the economy available for discretionary spending
by households. This measure of Income excludes spending on such basics as food, shelter, clothing, child
care, utilities, out of pocket medical care expenses, transportation and interest payments on consumer debt.
Source: BEA NIPA data, deflated using PCE less food and energy price index.

11
contributions for health pension and other benefits. It also adjusts for underreporting of
income and is broader than measures of hourly wages for production or non-supervisory
work, tax-based administrative data, or survey-based measures of median household
income, which tend to under-represent both noncash income and the incomes of low and
high income groups. As a result, national accounts-based estimates of average incomes
have led to discussions over the gains from economic growth. The main speculation has
been on the extent to which the higher average income growth from national accounts
reflected a more complete picture of income or to growth in average income that
exceeded that of median income.

In recent years, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty have extensively used individual
income tax data to study the evolution and composition of income and wage inequality in
the United States. In examining the income share of the top decile, Saez and Piketty
found that a large share of the distributional fluctuations are isolated in the share of
income and wages accruing to the top 1 percent of the population. In his most recent
calculations, Saez reports that between 1993 and 2006, the average real income per
family in the bottom 99 percent grew at about 1.1 percent per year. During the same
period, however, average real income growth per family for the top 1 percent was 5.7
percent, meaning that over this 13 year period the top 1 percent of families accounted for
about 50 percent of total income growth. In addition, in 2002–2006, Saez reports that the
top 1 percent accounted for almost 75 percent of income growth. According to Saez, the
enormous growth in the income share of the top 1 percent can be attributed to the
concentration of wages and salary growth accruing to the top 1 percent of wage earners,
which increased to 12 percent in 2006 from 5.1 percent in 1970.

Using such data to develop estimates of the distribution of personal income in the
national accounts is not a new concept. Kuznets recognized the value of distributional
measures while working on National Income and Its Composition, 1919-1938 (1941).
Estimating difficulties in large part caused by data limitations delayed the release of his
distributional analysis until Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Savings
(1953), in which he developed estimates of the share of income accruing to the top 5
percent of the population. The importance Kuznets placed on the study of the distribution
of income was also apparent in his 1955 presidential address to the American Economic
Association, which examined income inequality and the factors determining secular
trends in income inequality.

In the past BEA produced estimates of the nation’s purchasing power according to the
size of family income and the distribution of income across families. The first estimates
were published in 1953, Income Distribution in the United States by Size, 1944–1950.
The estimates were useful for marketing studies and to researchers assessing the
economic welfare and purchasing power of households. These estimates were
periodically updated in articles in the Survey of Current Business until they were
discontinued in 1965 due to lack of resources to update the estimates.

Increased availability of administrative tax data, technological advances in data storage

capacity, and computing power provide the potential to add a distributional element to

12
existing measures of income in the national accounts. Today, it is increasingly important
that we understand not only how income from current production is shared between labor
and capital but also how that income, and the purchasing power associated with it, is
shared amongst households in the economy and why.

Regional income
Two adjustments would be useful in providing alternative measures of regional income.
The first adjustment would be to provide a cash basis measure of income, which would
be useful in measuring the cash income available to each region. In BEA’s regional
accounts, state, metropolitan area, and county personal income from pensions is
measured by the expenses of production; personal income includes the contributions of
employers to pension funds and the earnings on those investment funds, rather than the
income paid to retirees from the fund.8 Calculating income on a cash basis, which is
counting actual money received instead of contributions to a pension, shows that the
amount of income varies widely across states. Chart 2 illustrates the effect of recording
pension incomes on a cash basis by state. Areas with large pension contributions—such
as Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, each with a large number of federal
workers—are net losers. States such as Florida and other states with large retirement
populations and lots of actual income from retirement funds (and lower wage and salary
incomes) tend to be net gainers.

Another adjustment would be to develop estimates of the “real” incomes received by

households across regions by adjusting for differences in regional prices. Chart 3 uses
experimental work by BEA and BLS on regional prices to develop illustrative real
estimates by state.9 As can be seen, there are significant differences in “real” per capita
personal income due to differences in prices across states. More rural, lower cost-of-
living states—such as West Virginia, North Dakota, and Missouri—would see their
income per capita raised relative to urban and higher cost of living areas such as New
York, Washington DC, and Hawaii.

8
The pension earnings are recorded as owned by current workers and counted as part of personal interest
and dividend income.
9
Bettina Aten and Roger D’Souza, “Regional Price Parities: Comparing Price Level Differences Across
Geographic Areas, Survey of Current Business, November 2008; and Bettina Aten. Inter-Area Price
Levels: An Experimental Methodology, Monthly Labor Review, September, 2006.

13
Chart 5. Difference of including retirement income in state of current residence
Maryland
Virginia
California
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Colorado
Connecticut
D.C.
Massachusetts
North Carolina
Georgia
Hawaii
Delaware
Oregon
Alaska
Maine
Illinois
Ohio
Mississippi
Indiana
New Hampshire
Oklahoma
Rhode Island
Idaho
Kansas
Iowa
North Dakota
New Mexico
Missouri
South Dakota
New Jersey
Louisiana
Montana
Nebraska
Wyoming
Washington
Vermont
Alabama
West Virginia
Arkansas
Kentucky
Nevada
Tennessee
Utah
South Carolina
Arizona
Texas
New York
Pennsylvania
Michigan
Florida

-6.0 -4.0 -2.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0
$ difference (billions)

Source: Experimental estimates based on existing BEA regional data.

14
Chart 6. Difference after adjustment for regional prices
West Virginia
North Dakota
Missouri
Arkansas
Kentucky
Alabama
Iowa
Kansas
Oklahoma
Indiana
South Dakota
Louisiana
Mississippi
South Carolina
Idaho
Tennessee
Montana
New Mexico
Wyoming
Nebraska
North Carolina
Ohio
Utah
Georgia
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Texas
Michigan
Maine
Pennsylvania
Arizona
Oregon
Colorado
Delaware
Illinois
Vermont
Florida
Nevada
Virginia
Washington
Maryland
Alaska
Rhode Island
New
Massachusetts
Connecticut
New Jersey
California
Hawaii
D.C.
New York

-10,000 -8,000 -6,000 -4,000 -2,000 0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000

$ difference (per capita)

Source: Aten & D’Souza, 2008

15
Business income
In addition to wages and salaries, income from sole proprietors, partnerships and other
small businesses is an important component of household income and indicator of how
well the average household is doing. Despite the importance of this type of income, there
is no integrated picture of small business activity in the national accounts, and existing
aggregates of business activity and income often obscure the differential change in the
condition of small versus large businesses and the change across industries and regions.
Business income in the national accounts is split between corporate and noncorporate
income; and within noncorporate, between farm and nonfarm income. This limited detail
provides little information to aid policy makers in formulating the many programs
targeting assistance to small business.

A significant portion of business income in the NIPAs is currently benchmarked to IRS

tax return data. In addition to their current importance in measuring aggregate business,
tax data can also be a rich source of information for measuring the contributions made to
GDP and household income by small businesses. Alternative measures of business
income could be considered that ignored organizational form (that is, corporate versus
proprietors’ income), that better isolated business income more directly passed through to
households, or that provided information regarding contributions to business income and
its growth by asset size or size of total business receipts.

It could be argued that the current distinction between corporate and noncorporate
business income obscures the economic contributions of certain small businesses
choosing to be organized as Subchapter S-corporations (S-corps). Unlike generally larger
Subchapter C-corporations (C-corps), S-corps do not pay a corporate level income tax
and for tax purposes, business income is passed directly through to business owners. In
the national accounts, business income and profits of both C-corps and S-corps are
aggregated in the measure of corporate profits. This presentation masks the differential
growth rates and changing contributions to corporate profits between C-corps and S-
corps in recent years. For example, according to IRS data, between 1994 and 2006, S-
corps as a share of the number of total corporate businesses increased from 46.7 percent
to 68.4 percent. As a share of total business receipts for corporations, the share
attributable to S-corps increased from 18.3 percent in 1994 to 26.2 percent in 2006.

16
Chart 7. S-Corp share of total number of business and total business receipts

80.0

70.0

60.0

50.0
Percent

40.0

30.0

20.0

10.0

0.0
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Share of total number of corporations Share of total corporate business receipts

Source: IRS Statistics of Income

Assessing the Sustainability of Trends in the Economy

Public and private decision makers tasked with assessing the sustainability of trends in
the economy would also benefit greatly from highlighting various data that are already
included in the national accounts or could be derived from the existing national accounts
and their underlying source data..

Net domestic product and net investment

Since the U.S. national accounts were developed in the 1930s by Simon Kuznets and his
colleagues, there has been recognition of the need to calculate a measure of income and
production that nets out the capital and natural resources used up in production.
Similarly, business accounting deducts the cost of depreciation and depletion in
calculating profits.

In the national accounts, the “G” in GDP stands for gross to indicate that depreciation has
not been subtracted out. Net domestic product is equal to GDP less depreciation, or what
BEA calls the consumption of fixed capital. Net domestic product is a rough measure of
sustainable income, that is, the amount of consumption that is sustainable after putting
aside the amount of resources necessary to replace the productive capital stock used up in
production. Alternatively, it can be described as the amount that can be consumed
without reducing the consumption of future generations.

17
BEA has produced estimates of net domestic product and net domestic income, for
decades, but they have received little attention. Yet over time, real net domestic product
and real net domestic income can produce significantly different estimates than the
commonly referenced GDP and GDI estimates. For example, between 2000 and 2007
gross domestic income grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate, and net domestic income grew
at a 2.0 percent rate. During the downturn in 2008, gross domestic income declined by
0.4 percent, while net domestic income declined by 0.9 percent.

BEA also produces estimates of net domestic investment, which deducts depreciation
from gross domestic fixed investment for a measure of net additions to wealth. Like net
domestic income, net fixed investment looks quite different from gross investment.
For example, between 2000 and 2007, on average, nearly 62 percent of gross business
investment simply replaced capital used up in the production process; only $927 billion
of the nearly $2.4 trillion in gross business fixed investment represented a net addition to
the future productive potential of the domestic capital stock. Over time, the two measures
also produce quite different results. For example, over the last business cycle, gross
investment grew at 1.5 percent, while net domestic investment contracted 1.9 percent.

Chart 8. Real gross domestic income and real net domestic income

2.5 2.2
2.0
2.0

1.5
1.0

0.5

0.0
‐0.5 ‐0.4
‐1.0
‐0.9
‐1.5
Avg. growth, 2000‐2007 2008

Real GDI Real NDI

Source: BEA NIPA data.

18
Chart 9. Gross domestic investment and net domestic investment

5.0
1.5
0.0

‐1.9
‐5.0
‐5.5
Percent

‐10.0

‐15.0

‐20.0

‐21.9
‐25.0
Avg. growth, 2000‐2007 2008

Real Gross Domestic Invest. Real Net Domestic Invest.

Source: BEA NIPA data.

Asset Values, Saving, and Consumption

The notion of sustainability is also relevant to the housing and financial bubbles that the
nation experienced over the last decade and their impact on saving, consumption, and
overall economic performance.

The business and popular press seem to have decided that few people anticipated the
collapse in U.S. housing and equity prices. Even fewer accurately anticipated the
suddenness and depth of the drop in housing and stock markets, which spread the
problems in U.S. asset markets around the world.

There seemed to be a consensus during the bubble that U.S. housing and stock prices
were “too high” to be sustained and that consumers spent “too much” and saved too little.
Since the mid-1990s, consumers generally depended on the appreciation of their homes
and portfolios to do their saving for them. However, most experts seemed to think that a
correction would occur smoothly over time, with a slowing in the rate of increase in
house and equity prices below overall growth and inflation, or through a normal (mild)
cyclical correction.

Although the existing GDP and related accounts did a good job in measuring the evolving
path of the real economy, supplementary data derived from integrated real and financial
accounts might have helped policymakers, analysts, and investors by highlighting how
out of line housing and equity prices were and how big an adjustment was required.
Unfortunately, while much of the information was available, it was not presented in a
fashion that attracted attention or affected policy in the way that GDP, inflation, or the
unemployment rate affect monetary policy. While some attribute the current downturn to
the effect of monetary policy on asset inflation and of regulatory policies that failed to

19
confront excessive risk taking, good statistics can play a key role in forming public policy
by highlighting the magnitude of emerging problems and by aiding in the building of
public consensus about policy action.

Chart 10 shows the rise in the value of the U.S. housing stock relative to personal income
and GDP. Between 2000 and 2007, the value of the U.S. housing stock rose from 1.1
times personal income to 1.4 times personal income, as housing prices rose an average
9.2 percent annually. Meanwhile, personal income rose an average 4.8 percent annually.
While part of this increase was driven by a drop in mortgage rates, ultimately housing
prices are dependent on personal income or expected further capital gains on housing
investment. At some point, the price increase became an unsustainable bubble. The
regular publication of ratio data such as the ratio of the value of housing to personal
income shown in chart 10 along with data on leveraging in housing markets shown in
chart 11 might have been helpful in recognizing the size and extent of that bubble earlier.
Additional ratio data in Chart 12 of household net worth to personal income – which was
rising over this period – help to understand households’ willingness to take on
incremental debt.

Chart 10: Residential fixed assets and personal income

2.0
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
ratio

1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
70

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

00

02

04

06

08
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

20

20

Value of household real estate assets/Personal Income

Source: BEA NIPA and Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data.

20
Chart 11. Household liabilities and personal income

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8
ratio

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
70

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

00

02

04

06

08
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

20

20
Household total liabilities/Personal Income

Source: BEA NIPA and Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data.

Chart 12. Household net worth and personal income

6.0

5.0

4.0
ratio

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0
70

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

00

02

04

06

08
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

20

20

Net Worth/Personal Income

Source: BEA NIPA and Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data

21
Chart 13 shows the rise in U.S. equity prices relative to profits and GDP. For most of the
post-WWII era, the S&P stock price index rose at roughly the same rate as GDP and
corporate profits. This makes sense because over time growth in stock prices must come
from growth in the economy or a higher rate of return to capital investments. However,
after the mid-1990s, U.S. stock prices—even after accounting for the cyclical drop in
profits in 2000—soared relative to GDP and corporate profits. Part of the rise was based
on the perception that the United States had entered a period of higher economic growth
driven by technology. And as can be seen from chart 13, while there was a bump-up in
economic growth above the slower growth experienced since the early 1970s, it was not
sufficient to explain “irrational exuberance” seen in financial market expectations, nor
was it particularly high in the context of long-term growth

Chart 13: Growth in equity prices relative to GDP & NIPA profits
100

90

80

70

60
1949=1

50

40

30

20

10

0
1 949 195 4 1959 19 64 1 969 1974 19 79 19 84 1989 199 4 1999 2004

Nom inal GD P "S& P clos ing prices" Dom estic P rofits from C urre nt Pdn.

Source: BEA NIPA data, Standard and Poor’s data.

Chart 14 shows the share of the increase in household net worth (saving) that came from
saving out of current income as compared with capital gains on homes or investments.
Between 2000 and 2007, households saw their net worth rise from $42.0 trillion to $62.6
trillion.10 In response, households saw little need to save out of current income; the
personal saving rate dropped from 2.3 percent to 0.6 percent. There seemed to be little
need for households to be concerned about the future because “saving” thorough
appreciation in their portfolio was more than offsetting the drop in their saving out of
current income, and the ratio of net worth to disposable income was actually increasing.
These unsustainable trends—based on the unsustainable rise in housing and equity

10
Federal Reserve Board, Flow of Funds data available:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/default.htm

22
prices—not only had significant implications for the adequacy of household retirement
assets but also significant implications for the U.S. and world economy; U.S. saving out
of current income has risen significantly since the recession began, and the share of U.S.
GDP accounted for by consumer spending has fallen to below 70 percent.

Chart 14. Household asset values and savings

65000 1.60

60000
1.40
55000

50000 1.20

45000
1.00
Billions of dollars

Index, 80Q1:1.00
40000

35000 0.80

30000 0.60
25000
0.40
20000

15000 0.20
10000
0.00
5000

0 -0.20
81 1

83 1
82 1

84 1
85 1
86 1
87 1
88 1
89 1
90 1
91 1
92 1
93 1
94 1
95 1
96 1
97 1
98 1
99 1
00 1
01 1
02 1
03 1
04 1
05 1
06 1
07 1
08 1
1
Q
Q
Q
Q
Q
Q

Q
Q
Q
Q
Q
Q

Q
Q

Q
80

Net worth Personal savings rate Net worth as % of DPI

Source: BEA NIPA data and Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data.

These figures, which are based on available data, illustrate how far out-of-line the prices
were in housing and stock markets and the extent to which the household saving rate out
of current income was unsustainable. Unfortunately, these charts and associated ratios
were not produced or highlighted by BEA, which produces the U.S. GDP, personal
income, and profits data, or the Federal Reserve Board, which produces the U.S.
domestic financial and household balance sheets.

There was also a gap was in macroeconomic data to warn of the growing imbalances in
credit markets. The available data in chart 15 only show a slight higher average leverage
ratio in the financial sector, 1.03 beginning in the late 1990’s compared with an average
ratio of .97 over the previous two decades, indicating that the U.S. data are too aggregate
to isolate the dramatic increase in leveraging that was taking place in mortgage banks,
other financial institutions, and special purpose entities.

23
Chart 15. Financial business sector leverage
1.20

1.15

1.10

1.05

1.00

0.95

0.90

0.85

0.80
70

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

00

02

04

06
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

20
Financial Business TL / TA

Source: BEA/FRB Integrated U.S. Macroeconomic accounts

Because the data were too aggregated, detailed data on maturity to identify misalignment
of assets and liabilities—such as detailed data by type of instrument, such as how much
of U.S. international bond sales were of collateralized sub-prime loans—were also
missed.

A more complete list of data that would be required to address the gaps in the financial
data include: 1) more complete data on those institutions that played a large role in the
crisis: hedge funds, private equity funds, structured investment vehicles, and 2) more
detailed data by type of instrument, by maturity, on valuation by type of instrument, by
ultimate owner rather than counterparty and on special purpose entities, and 3) more data
on leverage by institution and instrument.

All of this data should be collectible through the existing reporting systems of the
Treasury and Federal Reserve Board and should correspond with information required
under any new regulatory reporting systems that emerge from the proposals currently
before the Congress.

Through new data and the publication of charts and analytic ratios, BEA could provide
additional tools for macroeconomic analysts and policymakers. In the past, BEA
produced a monthly journal, Business Conditions Digest, and a special Cyclical
Indicators section of the Survey of Current Business that presented analytic information
on evolving economic conditions in charts and ratios. The Business Conditions Digest
and the Cyclical Indicators section were eliminated due to budget constraints. While the

24
return to the publication of the leading indicators component of those charts and ratios is
not consistent with the Bureau’s mission and would be duplicative of private sector
efforts, the publication of selected ratios and data on sustainability, such as those
discussed above, might be an efficient means of providing economists with tools which
they could use to address the integration of risk, finance, and the real economy currently
being called for by voices within and outside the economic profession.11

Next Steps

This paper has presented possible alternative measures of economic activity that could
expand the usefulness of the existing national accounts in understanding the distribution
of the growth in incomes and the sustainability of trends in the economy and their
implications for future growth. Few of the proposals here are completely new, and some
of the suggestions are nearly as old as the initial set of national income account
developed by Kuznets and others. However, the magnitude of the current downturn and
the differences between aggregate growth and growth across households, sectors, and
regions of the country suggest the need for a review of the use of the national accounts,
which were first developed during the great depression.

The development of such new data will follow the steps that BEA has always taken in the
development of new estimates. First, the methods, source data, and experimental
estimates will be subjected to an internal and external review to ensure that they meet the
bureau’s standards for accuracy, reliability, timeliness, and relevance. Second, prototype
estimates will be published for public comment by users of the national accounts. Finally,
after this period of review and adjustment is completed, BEA will begin regular
publication of these new and more detailed data as part of its regular monthly, quarterly,
and annual estimates.

11
See Coy (2009, The Economist (2009) and Stiglitz (2009).

25
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