Productivity measures for retail trade: Data and issues

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 128, Issue 7, 2005, Pages 30-38

  Manser, Marilyn E ^a  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 28244449020     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: 00981818     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (36)

1. For trade and most other service sector industries, gross output is measured as total shipments. For manufacturing and a few other industries, gross output is measured as total shipments to other industries less inventory change. For a few industries, output is a physical quantity measure.
2. 0O, and so forth. In practice, output quantities generally are constructed from values and prices.
3. Walter Oi, "Retail Trade in a Dynamic Economy," unpublished paper presented at the Brookings Institution Workshop on productivity measurement in the services sector, September 2000, p. 15.
4. Oi, "Retail Trade in a Dynamic Economy," p. 4.
5. According to Oi, "Retail Trade in a Dynamic Economy," the gap between estimates of gross margin and value added for retail trade widened slightly over the 1983-97 period.
6. Oi, "Retail Trade in a Dynamic Economy," also argues that data should be disaggregated by store format, at least chain versus independent, and by breadth of output line.
7. Jack E. Triplett and Barry P. Bosworth, Productivity in the U.S. Services Sector: New Sources of Economic Growth (Washington, DC, The Brookings Institution, 2004), ch. 8, discuss the pros and cons of use of sales versus gross margins, and provide additional references.
8. In this case, labor productivity would be expected to rise using the sectoral output concept and might either rise or fall using the gross margins concept.
9. For additional discussion, see Oi, "Retail Trade in a Dynamic Economy."
10. Annual Benchmark Report for Retail Trade and Food Services: January 1992 Through February 2004 Current Business Reports, BR/03-A (U.S. Census Bureau, March 2004), on the Internet at www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/br03-a.pdf (visited July 13, 2005).
11. In general, the historical consumer price data used are research series CPIS.
12. Counts of new vehicles sold are based on Ward's Automotive data. Counts of used cars sold in new car dealer industries (NAICS 441110) are from National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) data. The service and parts segment of the industry measure is based on detailed service department current dollar sales from NADA, deflated using CPIS. Indexes for the three industry segments are aggregated into an output index for new car dealer industries using base year employment weights based on NADA data.
13. Beginning with release of data for 2004, BLS will revise its procedures to construct output data for new car dealers based on the same data sources and methodology used for the other retail trade industries.
14. BEA calls this series "gross output;" a term which we do not use in this article in order to avoid confusion.
15. First, sales of services and parts installed (for example, services provided on new cars by car dealers) are included in output. Second, BEA adds its own estimates of retail sales taxes and excise taxes, rather than use the Census Bureau estimates of taxes. Third, own account software and own account construction are added. Fourth, BEA makes adjustments for misreporting, misfiling, and nonemployers.
16. Figures reported in this article are based on data available as of June 2, 2005.
17. Marcel P. Timmer, Robert Inklaar, and Bart van Ark, "Alternative output measurement for the U.S. retail trade sector," Monthly Labor Review, July 2005, pp. 39-45.
18. Figures reported in this article are based on data available as of June 2, 2005.
19. For an analysis of the NAICS reclassification and of industry productivity trends under NAICS, see Lisa Usher, Matthew Russell, and Paul Takac, "Industry productivity trends under the North American Industry Classification system," Monthly Labor Review, November 2004, pp. 31-42.
20. As noted earlier in the article, the BLS sectoral output data are on a NAICS 2002 basis. The BEA NAICS data are on a NAICS 1997 basis.
21. See for instance, Triplett and Bosworth, Productivity in the U.S. Services Sector.
22. BLS also produces productivity and related measures for all four-digit industries in retail trade and, where possible, for five- and six-digit industries. Those data are available upon request by contacting the Division of Industry Productivity Studies by e-mail: dipsweb@bls.gov or by calling 202-691-5618.
23. For additional discussion of trends in retailing, see Mark Soiling, Brian Friedman, and Mark Dumas, "Labor productivity in retail trade," Monthly Labor Review, December 2001, pp. 3-14. This article presents productivity trends from 1987-99 using sic-based data.
24. Computer hardware, software, and supplies accounted for 42.0 percent of sales in the electronics and appliance stores industry (NAICS 443) and for 19.0 percent of industry sales in the nonstore retailers industry (NAICS 454) in 1997. Together, sales in these two industries accounted for 92.2 percent of all retail sales of this merchandise line.
25. See, for instance, Tripleu and Bosworth, Productivity in the U.S. Services Sector.
26. Or see Timmer and others, "Alternative Output Measurement."
27. BLS does not have productivity data for all the components of electronics and appliance stores (NAICS 443) that would be needed to undertake this exercise at a lower level of detail.
28. Output data are available on the Internet at ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/ special.requests/opt/dipts/outin.txt (visited June 2, 2005).
29. Oi, "Retail Trade in a Dynamic Economy."
30. This discussion of PPI procedures is based largely on an unpublished "Industry Synopsis" prepared prior to beginning pricing of the industry. A shorter discussion, "Retail Trade Industries in the PPI," was published in the PPI Detailed Report (Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2000). If a meaningful margin price does not exist, such as for some deli items or baked goods made on the premises, the net sales price is captured. PPI uses the term "margin prices;" these prices are appropriate for deflating what we have termed, "the value of gross margin output," that is, sales minus the cost of goods purchased for resale.
31. Although it was recognized that the national accounts define the margin price as the selling price of a good in the retail market less the cost of replacing the good in the store's stock, it was determined to be infeasible to operationalize that definition.
32. Also, discounts are taken into account and quality adjustment procedures are used.
33. Basic price is what the producer actually receives. Therefore, it excludes indirect business taxes and transportation costs, which are included in the market price.
34. Robert Gordon, "Why Was Europe Left at the Station When America's Productivity Locomotive Departed?" NBER Working Paper 10661 (Cambridge, MA, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2004).
35. For a discussion of issues in measuring hours, see Lucy P. Eldridge, "Hours Measures for Productivity Measurement and National Accounting," paper prepared for the Paris group, September 2004, available on the Internet, at www.insee.fr/en/nom_def_met/colloques/citygroup/2004meeting_papers.htm,
36. item d. "Substantive papers for session 3," United States (visited July 13, 2005).