The ''Survey of Current Business'' (SCB) is a monthly publication by the
Bureau of Economic Analysis
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the United States Department of Commerce is a U.S. government agency that provides official economy of the United States, macroeconomic and industry statistics, most notably reports about the gross domestic ...
(BEA) (a part of the
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bu ...
) that provides definitive information about the national economic accounts for the
economy of the United States
The United States is a highly developed mixed-market economy and has the world's largest nominal GDP and net wealth. It has the second-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) behind China. It has the world's seventh-highest per capita GD ...
maintained by the BEA.
History
The ''Survey of Current Business'' has been published monthly since July 1921, then under the auspices of the Bureau of the Census
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce
:
The International Trade Administration (ITA) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that promotes United States exports of nonagricultural U.S. services and goods.
Duties
The ITA's stated goals are to
# Provide practical info ...
, and the Bureau of Standards
A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is an organization whose primary function is developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpr ...
divisions of the United States Department of Commerce. Starting January 1994, the survey started publishing a table of contents online.[ Commerce Secretary ]Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
expected the regular publication of official economic data to help stabilize the economy by helping businesses make investment and operational decisions. Edwin Gay
Edwin Francis Gay (October 27, 1867 – February 8, 1946) was an American economist, Professor of Economic History and first Dean of the Harvard Business School.Morgen Witzel (2004) "Edwin Gay (1867-1946)" in: ''Fifty key figures in management''. ...
and Wesley Mitchell
Wesley Clair Mitchell (August 5, 1874 – October 29, 1948) was an American economist known for his empirical work on business cycles and for guiding the National Bureau of Economic Research in its first decades.
Mitchell was referred to as Thor ...
published frequently in the ''SCB'' as they developed the national economic accounts of the U.S.
Starting February 2014, print publication of the Survey was ceased on account of low demand for the print publication as well as budgetary constraints.[
Past issues are available online at the BEA web site.][
]
Content
Each issue of the ''Survey of Current'' Business includes a list of regularly reported national data, industry data, international data, and regional data. In addition, each issue contains articles about topical issues such as recent government budgets or laws or other national and international developments.[
]
Reception
The ''Survey of Current Business'' is widely used by macroeconomists and financial analysts to understand the state of the US economy. The numbers reported in the SCB are often treated as standard values for reference purposes and are used to judge the accuracy of forecasts or other estimates. For instance, the Livingston Survey The Livingston Survey is a biannual survey (conducted in June and December of every year) about the economy of the United States conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Begun in 1946, it is the longest continuous record of economists ...
relies on the SCB for its quarterly variables of real non-residential fixed investment and corporate profit after taxes.
See also
* Economic reports
The following reports on economic indicators are reported by United States government agencies:
*Business activity
**Wholesale Inventories
**Industrial Production (Federal Reserve)
*** Capacity Utilization
** Regional Manufacturing Surveys (purc ...
* Survey of Consumer Finances The ''Survey of Consumer Finances'' (SCF) is a triennial statistical survey of the balance sheet, pension, income and other demographic characteristics of families in the United States; the survey also gathers information on the use of financial ins ...
* Panel Study of Income Dynamics The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a longitudinal panel survey of American families, conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan.
The PSID measures economic, social, and health factors over the life course of f ...
* Philadelphia Fed Report The Philadelphia Fed Report, formally known as the Business Outlook Survey and sometimes abbreviated as BOS, is a monthly survey produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (informally known as the Philadelphia Fed) which questions manufact ...
* Ifo Business Climate Index
The Ifo Business Climate Index is a closely followed leading indicator for economic activity in Germany prepared by the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a c ...
* Federal Reserve Economic Data
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) is a database maintained by the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that has more than 816,000 economic time series from various sources. They cover banking, business/fiscal, consumer pri ...
References
External links
* {{official website, https://www.bea.gov/scb/index.htm
Economy of the United States
Official statistics