A Satellite Account to Measure the Retail Transformation Organizational, Conceptual, and Data Foundations (2021) / Chapter Skim
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4 Toward a Retail Satellite Account
4 Toward a Retail Satellite Account
Pages 73-88
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From page 73... ...
Information concerning satellite accounts was derived from the relevant literature and, most importantly, from the workshop organized by the panel to gather information. This included a background paper on satellite accounts in Canada produced by Philip Smith, Satellite Accounting in Canada (Smith, 2020)
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From page 74... ...
, allowing attention to be focused on a certain field or aspect of economic and social life in the context of national accounts."4 Eurostat cites as common examples satellite accounts that focus on the environment, tourism, or unpaid household work. As Philip Smith details in his background paper, over the last three decades this method of accounting has gradually become popular around the globe.
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From page 75... ...
covered more than 80 countries and identified 241 satellite accounts. It was part of the work program of the Conference of European Statisticians, and its main objec tives were to determine the extent of satellite accounting around the world and explore why and in what directions satellite accounting studies are increasing.
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From page 76... ...
This argues for keeping users of the satellite account engaged and informed, and for providing them with information so that they can determine whether the data are fit for their use and provide feedback to further the development of the account. At the workshop, Steve Landefeld, former director of BEA, which has a long history of developing satellite accounts, noted that it is most important to address the underlying data from a statistical viewpoint, such as standard errors and replicability, as part of preparing such an account for production.
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From page 77... ...
to overall productivity; a retail-related satellite account could provide a perspective on these questions that better reflects the transformational shifts in the sector. These primary potential users of newly formulated estimates for employment and productivity include the following: • Monetary, administration, and congressional authorities, who rely on data tracking changes in retail trade productivity.
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From page 78... ...
In addition to these primary uses of the newly formulated employment and productivity measures, a satellite account could support more detailed analyses that would benefit particular users and potentially lead to longterm improvements in the relevant employment and productivity statistics. • Researchers use federal data to identify economic relationships that are not directly reflected in the reported statistics, such as con trasts related to firm size or between domestic and foreign-owned establishments.
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From page 79... ...
It could be defined as all establishments in retail trade and establishments in specific NAICS codes in other sectors that primarily serve retail activities or customers. It might include retail (44, 45)
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80 A SATELLITE ACCOUNT TO MEASURE THE RETAIL TRANSFORMATION FIGURE 4-1a Comparison of distributional and retail-supporting industry codes. FIGURE 4-1b Comparison of retail-controlled and enterprise-based industry codes.
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From page 81... ...
CONCLUSION 4-3: To better understand the changes in retail-trade related industries, a collaborative effort between the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Census Bureau staff could make use of microdata as a laboratory to better understand many of the complicated aspects of developing a retail-related satellite account. The purpose would be to use the concepts and data to gain a better understanding of key issues, such as assessing the structural changes associated with the retail trade transformation by size of enterprise; understanding the role of auxiliaries and other nonretail establishments within retail trade enterprises; and assessing data gaps and approaches to solving them.
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From page 82... ...
Canada's satellite accounts usually rely on Statistics Canada's inputoutput tables. These satellite accounts typically rearrange information from those tables and add in additional detail from other sources.
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From page 83... ...
This distribution of intermediate goods and services purchased by the retail trade could be used to develop a definition of retail-supporting industries, though it might not have the full NAICS code detail needed. While this provides one way to identify the split between retail and nonretail output, the proportions are unlikely to be the same for the labor that goes into those categories.
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From page 84... ...
The distribution of intermediate goods and services purchased by retail trade as measured in the Bureau of Economic Analysis input-output tables could also be used to start the development of a definition of retail-supporting industries. The discussion of satellite accounts reinforced the importance of filling the data gaps identified in Chapter 3.
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From page 85... ...
The OECD has guidance for developing a digital economy satellite account that may be worth reviewing in developing a satellite account for retail trade.10 As summarized by BEA,11 BEA developed a set of supplemental statistics called the health care satel lite account to better measure spending trends and treatment prices. This satellite account measures U.S.
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From page 86... ...
Another set of satellite accounts that may provide guidance on split ting transportation NAICS codes into retail-supporting versus other is the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Transportation Satellite A ccounts, prepared by BTS in collaboration with BEA.13 CONCLUSION 4-6: Several existing Bureau of Economic Analysis satellite accounts may provide useful models for developing a retail satellite account, given the measurement challenges posed by the retail transformation.
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From page 87... ...
The outdoor recre ation satellite account addresses the challenge of dividing up statistics from several industries to combine some of them in a new grouping that is useful to the field. The small business satellite account addresses the challenge of identifying establishments of different sizes, which may also be an important way to divide the data for the retail sector.
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