Output Data

In IMPLAN, Output is the value of production by industry in a calendar year. It can also be described as annual revenues plus net inventory change. The Output for wholesale and retail Industries represents their margin only; it does not represent revenues (sales).

National Industry Output

Output is, by necessity, estimated from a number of sources. With the exception of the farm sectors and the commercial fishing sector, for which there is state-level raw data, raw total industry output (TIO) data are only available at the national level.  IMPLAN Output data largely come from the same sources as those used by the BEA in developing their Benchmark I-O tables.  The raw data source for the construction sectors and most service sectors is the BEA's Industry Output Series.  The raw data source for most manufacturing sectors is the U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM).  Both of these data sources are on a national basis and are lagged one year relative to the IMPLAN data year.  These data are projected based on the change in employment and employee compensation from the previous year to the current data year. While the BEA Industry Output Series data  for detailed sectors is lagged one year relative to the IMPLAN data year, the same data source has a non-lagged series at a more aggregate sectoring level, to which we control our projected values for the more detailed sectors.  Redefinition adjustments are also applied to output estimates in accordance with BEA practices.  Some special sectors require information from other surveys and censuses, as described below. 

Farm Sectors

We get state-level output estimates for the farm sectors from the USDA's NASS Value of Production and ERS Cash Receipts data series. These state values are then distributed to the counties by using the ratio of county physical production to state physical production from the latest Census of Agriculture.  Please see this document for more details.

Oil and Gas Extraction and Petroleum Refineries

We use a combination of BEA Output Series data and physical production and prices data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for petroleum and natural gas. While the EIA data are current to the IMPLAN data year, they are on a commodity basis, whereas the BEA data (which are lagged a year relative to the IMPLAN data year) are industry-based, which is what IMPLAN needs. 

Because the price of crude oil is so volatile, growth in employment and labor income in this sector do not always reflect growth in output as closely as in other sectors for which we use projected BEA Output data and whose products do not experience such price volatility.  Thus, using growth rates based on employment or labor income to project the lagged BEA output values is not ideal for these sectors.  Instead, we use EIA data on the prices and physical production of crude oil and natural gas to project the lagged BEA output value for the oil and gas extraction sector and the petroleum refineries sector.

Retail

The BEA Industry Output series has a limited number of retail sectors. Therefore, we apply the margin-to-sales ratio, calculated using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Retail Trade Survey which is lagged one year, to current year sales data from the U.S. Census Bureau's monthly time-series data for retail sales to get an estimate of current year retail margin. Note that the output for the wholesale and retail sectors represents the wholesale or retail margin only; it does not represent revenues (sales). 

Other Sectors

National output for the owner-occupied housing and tenant-occupied housing sectors is set to the Personal Consumption Expenditure (Household Final Demands) values for owner-occupied housing and tenant-occupied housing from BEA NIPA Table 2.4.5. - Personal Consumption Expenditures by Type of Product.

State-level output for the commercial fishing sector comes from the NOAA Fisheries Office of Science & Technology, Fisheries Statistics Division Fisheries Office of Science & Technology, Fisheries Statistics Division.

Sectors 527 through 530 (Used and second-hand goods, Scrap, Rest of world adjustment, and Non-comparable imports, respectively) are commodities only; therefore, their TIO is zero.

Sectors 531-536 are government payroll sectors and whose TIO, by definition, is equal to Value-Added.

State and County Distribution of National TIO

For the farm sectors and the commercial fishing sector, state-level TIO data are available.  County data are a function of state output per worker ratios applied to county employment figures.  For the remaining sectors, the first estimate of TIO is calculated as Intermediate Inputs (II) plus Value-Added (VA), where II is based on U.S. II-to-Employment ratios.  State TIOs are forced to sum to U.S. TIO, and county TIOs are forced to sum to state TIOs.

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Output vs. GDP