Comprehensive Revision of NIPA

[Paul <paul_@xxxxxxx>]

The BEA just released the first comprehensive revision of the NIPA in 4
years.  In addition to updating the reference year from 1996 to 2000 there
were some important methodological changes (along with the usual
statistical updating).
http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/2003cr_newsrelease.htm

1)  Such an update might have been expected to produce a major downward
revision in the GDP growth rate of the last year or so.  The news is that
it did not (perhaps because of the introduction of chain-weighted indexes
in 1996).  The methodological changes led to a modest downward revision but
the new statistical data led to an upward revision.  So Bush can breath a
bit easier:

> The pace of the current expansion has been revised down slightly; from the
> third quarter of
>    2001 to the second quarter of 2003, the average growth rate of real
> GDP is revised from 2.7
>    percent to 2.6 percent.

But note:

>  Corporate profits is revised up substantially for 2002; profits of
> domestic industries as a
>    percentage of gross domestic income is revised up from 6.3 percent to
> 7.1 percent.

2)  For those who love data, there are also many methodological changes
(some have said that they lean towards more neo-classical interpretations),
revised formats of tables and other novelties.

Paul