An empirical exploration of revisions in US national income aggregates

Abstract

Tests are applied to some key macroeconomic aggregates such as real and nominal GNP, GDP, final sales, and the GNP implicit deflator, to determine whether the data in various stages of availability from preliminary to final estimates are cointegrated. Generally, one is able to find cointegration between various vintages of GNP and the GNP implicit deflator although many other combinations of other series tested were found not to be cointegrated. While this is potentially a troublesome result it is also possible that the results reflect improvements made in the quality of aggregate economic data.