Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Pre-1997 Real State GDP Revised

Up to now, real state GDP prior to 1997 has been displayed in 1997 dollars as published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).  But this creates a discontinuity in the year 1997 on the state page; pre-1997 real state GDP is published in1997 dollars and post-1996 real state GDP is published in 2005 dollars.  There is a bump in GDP anyway because the BEA changes its method of computing state GDP in 1997 from "SIC" to "NAICS".

Real state GDP values prior to 1997 on usgovernmentspending.com have now been updated with a factor to convert from 1997 real dollars to 2005 real dollars.  The factor used is (9856166/8284432) which is the ratio of US real GDP for 1997 published by BEA using the NAICS method divided by the US real GDP for 1997 published by BEA using the SIC method.  There is still a bit of a bump for many states for 1997 real state GDP growth.