Director’s Message
In this issue, we are pleased to present a Research Spotlight discussing prototype measures of gross domestic product (GDP) by county. These statistics are the first of their kind to incorporate multiple data sources that capture trends in labor, revenue, and value of production, resulting in a more detailed and accurate picture of local area economies. They provide detail for every county in the United States and represent another step toward meeting the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) long-standing goal to provide a more complete picture of the geographic distribution of the nation’s economic activity. BEA is also requesting feedback from our data users on these prototype statistics; comments can be emailed to gdpbycounty@bea.gov.
Our Regional Quarterly Report details estimates for the third quarter of 2018. We discuss growth in real GDP by state, which ranged from 5.8 percent in the state of Washington to zero in West Virginia, and state personal income growth, which ranged from 6.2 percent in Nevada and in Washington to 2.1 percent in Missouri.
This month’s “GDP and the Economy” article discusses the “initial” estimate of GDP for the fourth quarter of 2018. Due to the partial federal government shutdown, many of the principal source data used to produce estimates of GDP were delayed. This initial estimate reflects a combination of data and methods typically used for both the advance and second current quarterly estimates.
