Rachel Soloveichik

This paper demonstrates that the measured wealth stock of the United States increases by $2 trillion in 2022 when radio spectra are included on the balance sheet. Furthermore, this paper also demonstrates that tracking radio spectra can impact the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs) noticeably. It may be true that radio spectra are not produced—and therefore do not impact measured investment. Similarly, radio spectra do not deteriorate with age—and therefore do not impact measured consumption of fixed capital. However, this paper argues that radio spectrum licenses which the federal government gives for “free” to the telecommunications industry should be tracked as a capital transfer in BEA’s NIPA table 3.1. These capital transfers are targeted towards new entrants and new products, and so they increase the competitiveness of the telecommunications industry.

The internationally agreed guidelines for national economic accounts, System of National Accounts 2008 (hereafter referred to as SNA 2008) (United Nations Statistics Division 2008), explicitly recommend that illegal market activity should be included in the measured economy. This recommendation has not yet been implemented by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) because of challenges inherent in identifying suitable source data and differences in conceptual traditions. This paper explores how tracking illegal activity in the U.S. national economic accounts might impact nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP), real GDP, productivity, and other economic statistics. Nominal GDP rises in 2017 by more than 1 percent when illegal activity is tracked in the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). By category, illegal drugs add $108 billion to measured nominal GDP in 2017, illegal prostitution adds $10 billion, illegal gambling adds $4 billion, and theft from businesses adds $109 billion. Real GDP and productivity growth also change. Real illegal output grew faster than overall GDP during the 1970s and post–2008. As a result, tracking illegal activity ameliorates both the 1970s economic slowdown and the post–2008 economic slowdown considerably.