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First Official Release of Gross Domestic Product by County, 2001-2018
On December 12, 2019, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the first official gross domestic product (GDP) by county statistics for 2001-2018. GDP by county is the value of goods and services produced by the county's economy less the value of goods and services used up in their production. It is the substate counterpart of the nation's GDP, BEA's featured and most comprehensive measure of U.S. economic activity. GDP by county statistics are also the foundation for metropolitan and micropolitan GDP statistics, which were included in the December 12th release.
GDP by county statistics provide data users with measures of the nation's economy at a more geographically detailed level and can be used by businesses and policymakers to identify the economic drivers in a county. The statistics also provide county officials and planners with important new information for allocating resources and designing new economic development strategies. GDP by county statistics can also help researchers study the industry composition of local economies and the long-term effects of development policies.
Prior to the December 2018 release of the prototype GDP by county statistics, the only countylevel statistics produced by BEA were personal income and its components. Personal income is defined as the income received by, or on behalf of, all persons from all sources-from participation as laborers in production, from owning a home or business, from the ownership of financial assets, and from government and business in the form of transfers. It includes income from domestic sources as well as from the rest of the world. It is measured on a place-ofresidence basis, and while very useful, it alone only provides a partial picture of the economic well-being of a particular area. The GDP by county statistics complete the picture.
Previous substate GDP statistics released by BEA relied solely on county earnings data-the sum of compensation of employees and proprietors' income-from BEA county personal income estimates to geographically distribute state GDP. Earnings-based GDP estimates capture the labor portion of production well, but their reliability decreases when estimating capital-intensive industries. The GDP by county prototype statistics were the first of their kind to incorporate additional data sources that capture trends in capital, business receipts, and value...