Integrated macroeconomic accounts for the United States

This article introduces a set of macroeconomic accounts that relate production, income and saving, capital formation, financial transactions, and asset revaluations to changes in net worth between balance sheets for major sectors of the US economy. Highlights of the integrated macroeconomic accounts include the following: 1. Among the domestic sectors, households and nonprofit institutions, nonfinancial noncorporate businesses, the Federal Government, and state and local governments have been net borrowers in recent years, as net fixed investment in these sectors has exceeded net saving. 2. The net lending position of the nonfinancial corporate sector in recent years has been quite unusual, with undistributed corporate profits (net saving) exceeding net investment by an average of $43.6 billion each year in 2003-2005. 3. Although the saving rate for households and nonprofit institutions has fallen to historically low levels in recent years, the net worth of this sector increased $12.9 trillion in 2003-2005. The integrated macroeconomic accounts represent a substantial effort by both the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Federal Reserve Board.