Bureau of Economic Analysis

THE Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releasedits annual update of the national income and product accounts (NIPAs) for 2013-2015 and forthe first quarter of 2016 along with the advance estimates for the second quarter of 2016 on July 29. As is usual for annual NIPA updates, the revised estimates reflect newly available source data that are more complete, more detailed, and otherwise more reliable than those that were previously incorporated. The reference year for price and quantity estimates remains 2009. With this update, economic growth from 2012 to2015 was revised up slightly, but the revised estimates are similar to the previously published estimates.

In 2007, I estimate that playwrights, artists, photographers and designers created miscellaneous artwork worth $3.3 billion. By category, theatrical play scripts were $1.4 billion, greeting card designs were $0.5 billion and commercial stock photography was $1.4 billion. Taken individually, each of the entertainment categories described earlier are too small to examine in a single paper. Therefore, I combine all three categories into a single paper. These diverse categories of artwork will earn revenue for their creators for decades to come. Because of their long working life, the international guidelines for national accounts recommends that countries classify production of all entertainment originals as an investment activity and then depreciation those entertainment originals over time. However, BEA did not capitalize this category of intangible assets until the July 2013 benchmark revision. In order to change the national accounts, I collected data on miscellaneous artwork production back to 1900. I then calculated how the GDP statistics would change when miscellaneous artwork is classified as a capital asset.