US Revises GDP Calculation

choi

(1) 杰瑞德·伯恩斯坦, 迪恩·贝克, 计算GDP规模应该考虑环境成本. 纽约时报中文网, Aug 2, 2013.
http://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20130802/c02bernstein/

, which is translated from

Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker, Bada GDP!  It's getting harder to estimate the size of the economy. New York Times, Aug 1, 2013 (op-ed)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/0 ... seinfeld-worth.html
("Not only is this a big change — that output, 3.6 percent of the total, lifting the economy to $16.6 trillion this year, is like adding a New Jersey to the nation’s economy — but it raises important questions about what we consider economic value and costs, and what we leave out")

My comment:
(a)
(i) bada-bing or bada-bing bada-boom
“(US, slang) an expression used to suggest that something can be done with no difficulty or delay”
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bada-bing
(ii) Bada Bing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada_Bing
(a fictional strip club from the HBO drama television series The Sopranos; named for catchphrase ‘bada bing,’  a phrase popularized by James Caan in The Godfather)
(b) The Chinese version of the op-ed misses the point. US government is now revising its GDP, retroactively from 1929 when GDP started. The following government announcement (see (2)) explains why (in fact , it was explained half a year ago, but I did not understand the reasoning then). The practical effect is that the upward revision will make China even harder to beat US in GDP. Unlike Chinese translation of the article, the point is not about environmental degradation, for no economic indicators so fat can catch that.

choi

(2) News release: National Income and Product Accounts[:] Gross Domestic Product, second quarter 2013 (advance estimate); Comprehensive Revision: 1929 through 1st quarter 2013. Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Department of Commerce, July 31, 2013 (news release).
http://bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2013/gdp2q13_adv.htm

Quote from the Part II of news release:

(a) "For 1929–2012, [with the current revision, see next] the average annual growth rate of real GDP was 3.3 percent, 0.1 percentage point higher than in the previously published estimates.  For the more recent period, 2002–2012, the growth rate was 1.8 percent, 0.2 percentage point higher than in the previously published estimates.

(b) "The improvements incorporated in the revised estimates have been previewed in a series of articles in the Survey and are available on BEA’s Web site at
www.bea.gov/gdp-revisions.

(c) "Changes in definitions, classifications, and presentations.  The changes in definitions, in classifications, and in presentations introduced in this comprehensive revision include the following:

*        Expenditures by business, government, and nonprofit institutions serving households (NPISH) for research and development (R&D) are recognized as fixed investment.  The new treatment improves BEA’s measures of fixed investment and allows users to better measure the effects of  innovation and intangible assets on the economy.

*        Similarly, expenditures by private enterprises for the creation of entertainment, literary, and artistic originals are recognized as fixed investment, further expanding BEA’s measures of intangible assets.

*        In the NIPA fixed investment tables, a new category of investment, "intellectual property products," consists of research and development; entertainment, literary, and artistic originals; and software."
=