2013 Data Release Notes

2013 R1 Release Notes

Highlights

• Incorporates new Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Benchmark input-output  (I-O) tables, which were released in 2014.
• Reflects latest methodological revisions to BEA National Income and Product Accounts.

• Enhanced use of demographic data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey on county- and zip code-level estimates of household income distributions.
• Includes data from the latest BEA Regional Economic Accounts, the 2012 Economic Census, the 2012 Census of Agriculture, Bureau of Labor Statistics QCEW dataset, preliminary 2012 Commodity  Flow Survey results, among many more.

Detailed Release Notes

New data source for Railroad Employment: The 2013 data year is the first year we incorporated independent railroad employment data (from the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board).

New Census of Agriculture: The Census of Agriculture is released every 5 years; thus, there may be some sizeable changes in some farm sectors in some regions. The 2012 Census of Agriculture was released in 2014 and is incorporated into the 2013 IMPLAN data set. Census of Agriculture data are used to disclose data missing from USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) data sources.

NASS Data for Agriculture Output: We use NASS sales and production data as a supplement to ERS sales data, where available, since the ERS sales data may omit inventory changes, home consumption, and production used in the production process of another agricultural good (e.g. hay used to feed animals). Large differences between the datasets tend to occur with products that are likely to be added or removed from inventory (grains) or consumed on a farm (hay, meat).

New BEA Benchmark: The BEA's Benchmark I-O tables are also released every 5 years. These tables set the course for IMPLAN's sectoring scheme, production functions, by-product coefficients, and market share coefficients. The 2007 Benchmark was released in 2014 and incorporated into the 2013 IMPLAN data set. This will cause changes across many sectors and regions.

New Household by Income Group Counts: Beginning with the 2013 IMPLAN data set, we now incorporate raw data for the counts of households by income group at the county and zip code levels. We previously used more aggregate-level distributions.

Foreign Trade of NAICS 115 (Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry): As of the 2013 data year, the Department of Commerce recoded all commodities previously assigned to NAICS Code 115 to other NAICS codes. This simply means that this commodity is now being correctly classified as a service. As such, we obtain the export/import values from the BEA Benchmark.

New Sectoring Scheme: As of 2013 data year, we have expanded the IMPLAN sectoring scheme from 440 sectors to 536 sectors. As a result, you will likely notice a change in the Top Ten lists in the Model Overview Screen. For example, when looking at the Top Ten Industries by Employment, sector 413 - Food services and drinking places - appeared near the top of this list in most regions. In the new sectoring scheme, this sector has been split into 3 specific types of food and drinking places:

• 501 – Full-service restaurants

• 502 – Limited-service restaurants

• 503 – All other food and drinking places

If you were to sum the Employment of these three sectors they would likely still appear in the Top Ten Industries by Employment; however, each of these sectors individually is now smaller, and thus may not appear in the Top Ten list.

Another result of splitting sectors is that ratios like output per worker, income per worker, etc. may differ for the more-detailed sector from the previously more-aggregate sector since the more-aggregate sector is a weighted average of its more-detailed parts. For example, suppose sector 501 has a very high income per worker, while sectors 502 and 503 have low income per worker. This would result in the old sector 413 having an income per worker ratio somewhere in the middle – not too high, not too low. Comparing 501 to the old 413, you would see an increase in income per worker, while comparing sector 502 or 503 to the old 413, you would see a decrease in income per worker. These changes do not necessarily reflect a change in workers' earnings, but rather just reflect a more-detailed allocation of the workers into more specific sectors, each of which has its own earnings rate.

2013 Comprehensive Revisions to the BEA's National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA):
The 2013 comprehensive revision to the NIPA Accounts defines new kinds of investments:
"Recognizing expenditures by business, government, and nonprofit institutions serving households for research and development (R&D) as fixed investment, thus improving BEA's measures of fixed investment and allowing users to better measure the effects of innovation and intangible assets on the economy."
Since investment is not current accounts spending – i.e., not part of an industry's production function - output, employment, payroll and spending activity for this investment must be removed from the industry and moved to sector 456 "Scientific research and development services". This essentially doubles employment in the 2013 sector 456 when compared to the corresponding 2012 employment (sector 376 in the 440 sector scheme).

A similar new redefinition was made for sector 446 (Lessors of nonfinancial intangible assets):
"Recognizing expenditures by private enterprises for the creation of entertainment, literary, and artistic originals as fixed investment, further expanding BEA's measures of intangible assets." 1
Creation of new intangible assets in a given year is small compared to the history of such asset creation, so the redefinition's effect on employment for sector 446 is relatively small.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/04/nipa_revisions_bea_will_treat_intangibles_as_capital_goods_and_boost_gdp.html
http://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2014/03%20March/0314_r&d_in_economic_accounts_and_in_business_accounts.pdf

Reclassified several sectors from government enterprise to administrative government
Federal government, state government and local government-owned establishments in several sectors were reclassified from government enterprise to administrative government and vice-versa. The reclassifications were done to maintain consistency with the BEA's Benchmark I-O accounts. Manufacturing was reclassified to administrative government for all government types.

2013 R2 Release Notes                                                                                                                                                                                       March 3, 2015

The second release of 2013 data reflects the most recent (2012) 5-year Census of Governments, which improves estimates of government spending and revenue. The Census of Governments had not been published early enough to integrate into the first release of 2013 data, which took place in December 2014.

The second release of 2013 data also reflects the most recent (2012) Commodity Flow Survey, which allows IMPLAN to use updated calibration data in its trade modeling system (i.e., the gravity model). The 2012 Commodity Flow Survey had not been published early enough to integrate into the first release of 2013 data, which took place in December 2014.

The initial download of raw zip-code-level CBP employment data were missing roughly 1/3 of the raw data. IMPLAN's zip-code estimation process uses disclosed CBP data as the preferred distributor for county-level employment and compensation estimates, with other variables (e.g., population) serving as back-up distributors. Thus, county-level employment and compensation in those industries that were missing CBP data (generally, NAICS codes > 51) were still allocated to zip-codes, although according to these backup distributors rather than according to disclosed CBP data. The second release of the 2013 data makes use of the full set of raw CBP data.

Finally, the second release of 2013 also corrects an error in the estimation of state- and county-level OPI. This issue affected only some sectors in some places, and resulted in over- or under-stating OPI, and, consequently, Output and Value-Added.  Because this issue did not affect Labor Income or Intermediate Expenditures, it did not affect impact analysis results except in the case of contribution analyses where Total Industry Output is used as the Event value.

2013 R3 Release Notes                                                                                                                                                                                         June 30, 2015

The third release of the 2013 data corrects an error in the Employment estimates of the farming sectors (sectors 1-14). This update does not affect Output, Total Value-Added, or any component of Value-Added for these sectors, nor does it affect commuting flows or trade flows for these sectors. Because this issue did not affect Labor Income or Intermediate Expenditures, it did not affect impact analysis results except in the case of contribution analyses where Total Industry Output is used as the Event value. This error can be attributed to a manual spreadsheet error.

The second release of 2013 data inadvertently omitted the Rail Transportation data for D.C.; thus, the third release of the 2013 data reinstates those data; this will cause some shifting of transportation sector values due to forcing all transportation sectors to the BEA REA parent transportation sector values and controlling states to the U.S. and counties to their respective state values.

If you wish to update your data with the newest release, please call us at 651-439-4421 or e-mail us at support@implan.com. We sincerely apologize for any trouble these errors may have caused you and will be implementing preventive measures to avoid such miscalculations in the future.