Data Points: New resources and other noteworthy developments

Check out the newly redesigned Website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, completed in late July. According to the agency, the new site includes improved navigation tools and search engine, plus a new guide to geographic data, resources organized by category of data user (consumers, investors, etc.), and an expanded index.

How will the federal income tax rebates affect the official measure of personal income?  The Bureau of Economic Analysis explains in a Q&A feature on its website that rebates will be recorded as either an offset to current personal taxes or as a social benefit payment to persons.  Visit the page for more details on the impact of the Economic Stimulus Act  of 2008.

An article on “Taking the Pulse of the Economy: Measuring GDP” by J. Steven Landefeld, Eugene P. Seskin, and Barbara M. Fraumeni has been published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.  The article starts with a historical perspective on how the national accounts were created, moves forward to how the components of today’s GDP report are compiled, and looks at the challenges of producing the data.  The paper is available here on the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) website

With the release of 2007 Economic Census data starting early next year, the Census Bureau will expand and enhance these detailed reports on various industries. Faster release of data will be provided through the American FactFinder, in part.  The agency spells out the differences in coverage, report formats, electronic tabulations, and more on its website.

The World Bank has merged some of its own data bases with Google Maps to provide The World Bank, Mapped—a visual user-friendly world map for browsing the bank’s statistics, public information center, projects, etc.   One click takes you to a series of files on the selected country, with more details another click away.