2.2 Estimating GDP

		Table 2.1 U.S. Gross Domestic Product, 1998 ($ billions)

Consumption

5,808

68 %

		Durable goods

725

		Nondurable goods

1,662

		Services

3,421

Investment

1,367

16 %

		Nonresidential structures

247

		Nonresidential equipment

691

		Residential

370

		Change in inventories

59

Government

1,487

17 %

		Federal defense

340

		Federal nondefense

180

		State and local

967

Net exports

-151

-1%

		Exports

959

		Imports

1,110

Gross domestic product

8,511

100%

Source: Survey of Current Business, May 1999. www.bea.doc.gov

		Curiosity 2.2: Where Can These Numbers Be Found?

		Go to www.rfe.org to get to the "resources for economists" web site where you can find anything you ever wanted to know about economics, including a plethora of economist jokes! Click on "data" to find a cornucopia of web sites with economic data, both domestic and international.

		The Economic Report the President can be found here; its appendix B has gathered together data on all dimensions of the domestic economy, and because of its convenience is the source of most of the numbers graphed in this book. For more detailed information on specific measures the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes national accounts data is the Survey of Current Business, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes price and unemployment data in the Monthly Labor Review, the Federal Reserve Board publishes interest rates and money supply data in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) publishes international data in the International Financial Statistics and the World Economic Outlook. For most data, however, it is not necessary to find these publications in the library; searching the rfe web site should enable you to find them on the web. For example, the contents of table 2.1 can be found at www.bea.doc.gov, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has international data on the main Western developed nations at www.oecd.org.

		Help interpreting many of these and other numbers can be found in A Guide to Everyday Economic Statistics by Gary Clayton and Martin Giesbrecht (New York: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, fourth edition, 1997) and in The Data Game, by Mark Maier (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, third edition, 1999). Help in interpreting financial data in the Wall Street Journal can be found in The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money and Markets by Richard Wurman, Alan Siegel, and Kenneth Morris (New York: Access Press, 1990).