Political Arithmetick

Reading between the lines: What Trump’s Budget Blueprint may mean for funding statistics

Brent Moulton March 16, 2017March 16, 2017 1

This morning, the Trump Administration released a “Blueprint” for its first Budget, which proposes dramatic cuts and restructuring of non-defense discretionary spending. Of course, I immediately searched the document for the impact on federal statistics. Although the document runs 62 pages, it’s really just a CliffsNotes version of the full budget, which will run hundreds …

How reliable are the employment/unemployment data? Standard errors and mean absolute revisions

Brent Moulton March 9, 2017 0

At 8:30 am tomorrow (March 10), BLS will release the “Employment Situation” for February. I expect most of the media attention will focus on whether U.S. employment growth accelerated or decelerated in the first month of the Trump administration—Trump has already tweeted about an ADP jobs report that was above expections. (ADP is a private-sector payroll services …

Where to Find Research on National Statistics

Brent Moulton February 22, 2017 0

One of the themes of this blog is improving the national statistics through research on measurement issues. Like other kinds of research, you’ll find it presented at conferences and ultimately published in working papers, journals, and books. While you may occasionally find research on national statistics in any journal or conference in the fields of …

How Globalization Could Change GDP and the National Accounts

Brent Moulton February 20, 2017February 20, 2017 5

National accounts statistics, such as GDP, are designed to measure economic activity taking place in a country. Multinational corporations, on the other hand, operate across many countries. In pursuing global profits, the affiliates of these multinationals often engage in transactions intended to reduce the multinational’s overall tax burden, and some of those transactions arguably distort …

Statistics for Forecasters: BEA’s Underlying and Key Source Data

Brent Moulton January 30, 2017 5

At 8:30 this morning, BEA released the December personal income and outlays report, and we learned that personal income increased 0.3 percent and real consumer spending (or personal consumption expenditures (PCE)) increased 0.3 percent in the final month of 2016. These estimates were prominently reported by the news media. Less than a half hour later, …

How Early GDP Estimates Have Become More Accurate

Brent Moulton January 26, 2017 0

Tomorrow morning’s advance GDP report is likely more accurate than similar reports released a couple years ago. Why is that? This morning the Census Bureau released the advance economic indicators report, which showed that the goods trade deficit had decreased and wholesale inventories had increased in December. We can expect BEA to incorporate these statistics …

Political Economy Meets Political Arithmetic

Brent Moulton January 25, 2017 4

Is it time for national statistics to move away from a framework centered on GDP? If so, how do we go about choosing the new framework? In today’s post, I turn my attention from anxieties about the potential impact of a new U.S. administration to more fundamental conceptual questions. This will be the first of …

Why I’m Concerned About the Independence of U.S. Statistical Agencies

Brent Moulton January 24, 2017January 26, 2017 20

Are the White House and the Bureau of Labor Statistics headed for a train wreck? The most recent BLS statistics for December showed 7.5 million unemployed persons and an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent. But throughout his campaign, President Trump repeatedly described the official BLS unemployment statistics as “phony numbers,” saying that the “real” unemployment …

Confidential Statistical Data Are Still Secure

Brent Moulton January 23, 2017 4

As the new Trump administration assumes control of the federal government, there’s uncertainty about how well it will maintain the integrity of official statistics. Can we be assured that the government will protect the confidentiality of the data it collects from us for statistical purposes? Can we be assured that the reported statistics will be prepared independently and …

What’s in the Core of the CPI?

Brent Moulton January 18, 2017January 18, 2017 4

This morning, BLS reported that the consumer price index increased 2.1 percent over the last 12 months. The index for all items less food and energy, commonly known as the “core CPI,” rose 2.2 percent over the same 12 months. The CPI is used for many purposes; when should the core CPI be used instead? …