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Can GDP Measurement Be Further Improved? Data Revision and Reconciliation

Author

Listed:
  • Jan P. A. M. Jacobs
  • Samad Sarferaz
  • Jan-Egbert Sturm
  • Simon van Norden

Abstract

Recent years have seen many attempts to combine expenditure-side estimates of U.S. real output (GDE) growth with income-side estimates (GDI) to improve estimates of real GDP growth. We show how to incorporate information from multiple releases of noisy data to provide more precise estimates while avoiding some of the identifying assumptions required in earlier work. This relies on a new insight: using multiple data releases allows us to distinguish news and noise measurement errors in situations where a single vintage does not. We find that (a) the data prefer averaging across multiple releases instead of discarding early releases in favor of later ones, and (b) that initial estimates of GDI are quite informative. Our new measure, GDP++, undergoes smaller revisions and tracks expenditure measures of GDP growth more closely than either the simple average of the expenditure and income measures published by the BEA or the GDP growth measure of Aruoba et al. published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan P. A. M. Jacobs & Samad Sarferaz & Jan-Egbert Sturm & Simon van Norden, 2022. "Can GDP Measurement Be Further Improved? Data Revision and Reconciliation," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 423-431, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jnlbes:v:40:y:2022:i:1:p:423-431
    DOI: 10.1080/07350015.2020.1831928
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Maria do Rosário Anjos, 2021. "Free Competition and Fiscal Policy in European Union," Journal of International Business Research and Marketing, Inovatus Services Ltd., vol. 6(6), pages 25-30, September.
    2. Ana Beatriz Galvão & James Mitchell, 2023. "Real‐Time Perceptions of Historical GDP Data Uncertainty," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(3), pages 457-481, June.
    3. Sekine, Toshitaka, 2022. "Looking from Gross Domestic Income: Alternative view of Japan’s economy," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Thierry Warin & Sarah Elimam, 2025. "GDP 5.0: Real-Time, Micro-Founded and Sustainable Metrics for Beyond-GDP Economic Assessment," CIRANO Working Papers 2025s-20, CIRANO.
    5. Eiji Goto & Jan P.A.M. Jacobs & Simon van Norden, 2025. "Data-Driven Learning About Trend Productivity Growth," CAMA Working Papers 2025-53, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    6. Maria do Rosário Anjos, 2020. "Free Competition and Fiscal Policy in European Union," International Journal of Operations Management, Inovatus Services Ltd., vol. 1(1), pages 49-56, October.
    7. James Mitchell & Gary Koop & Stuart McIntyre & Aubrey Poon, 2020. "Reconciled Estimates of Monthly GDP in the US," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2020-16, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    8. Eiji Goto & Jan P.A.M. Jacobs & Tara M. Sinclair & Simon van Norden, 2023. "Employment reconciliation and nowcasting," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 1007-1017, November.
    9. Demetrescu, Matei & Kruse-Becher, Robinson, 2025. "Is U.S. real output growth non-normal? A tale of time-varying location and scale," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    10. Zhang, HongWei & Xie, Yuan, 2024. "Assessing natural resources, rebounding trends, digital economic structure and green recovery dynamics in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Buccheri, Giuseppe & Renò, Roberto & Vocalelli, Giorgio, 2025. "Taking advantage of biased proxies for forecast evaluation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    12. Kurt Graden Lunsford, 2023. "The Discrepancy Between Expenditure- and Income-Side Estimates of US Output," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2023(01), pages 1-7, January.
    13. Yannic Stucki, 2024. "Measuring Swiss Employment Growth: A Measurement-Error Approach," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 20(3), pages 443-473, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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