What's New - August 2004
STAT-SCAN: The EconData.Net Newsletter
REVISED EDITION
Editors Note: We are sending you this revised version of our August newsletter, which contained an error in reporting health insurance coverage data; our link to data on casualties in Iraq was broken and has been repaired. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
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August's site of the month focuses on the the key role
productivity plays in driving economic growth. The San Francisco Federal
Reserve Bank has recently launched a new research center to study innovation,
technology, and productivity and their contributions to economic activity. One
of its early accomplishments is an elegant and easy to use website with links to
data relevant to all these subjects. You’ll
find national and state level data on productivity, output and a series of
measures related to the information technology (IT) sector, including selected sales data for semiconductors.
The site offers a slick customized on-line charting tool for each of its
major data series, and also gives you the opportunity to download data as well.
http://www.frbsf.org/csip/data.php
And if the Center for the Study of Innovation and Productivity’s historic data
isn’t enough for you, you’ll really appreciate its estimates of Gross State
Product by state. Building on the
data series developed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, CSIP makes its own
estimates of annual growth rates in state GSP.
You’ll find estimates for state 2003 GSP growth at:
http://www.frbsf.org/csip/rf_gsp.pdf
Our hearts and our best wishes go out to the families and
friends of those who have lost loved ones as part of the ongoing war in Iraq. Since last March, more than 900 Americans have lost their
lives in this conflict, but numbers alone cannot tell us much about the
consequences of this toll. We at
EconData.Net think its good to pause and reflect on the individuals who are
gone, and the communities they have left behind.
Icasualties.org provides a comprehensive, factual guide to the numbers and the
stories behind the numbers. You can view a state-by-state list of
Iraq casualties with links to personal information about each of the fallen at:
http://icasualties.org/oif/ByState.aspx
In
June, the Census Bureau released its estimates of the 2003 population of the
nation’s largest cities (incorporated areas with a population of 100,000 or
more). The data includes 275
cities. Between 2000 and 2003, 171
of these cities saw increases in population and 74 experienced declines.
Suburban communities in Arizona, Nevada, California and Florida dominated
the top of the list for cumulative percentage increase in population since 2000;
Among the biggest population declines over the past three years were St. Louis,
Cincinnati, Detroit, Flint, Baltimore and Cleveland.
http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/cities/tables/SUB-EST2003.php
The
number of adults without health insurance increased from 23.7 percent in
2001 to 24.7 percent in 2002 and 26.4 percent in 2003 in the 85 metro
markets surveyed regularly by The
Media Audit. The Media Audit, produced by a Houston based market research firm,
reports the percentage of the adult population not covered by health insurance
in 85 metropolitan markets throughout the United States.
Fewer than 15 percent of adults in the Washington DC area lack health
insurance; nearly a third of those in Miami, Dallas and Houston are without
insurance coverage. You’ll find
an estimate of coverage by metro at:
http://www.themediaaudit.com/Uninsured.pdf
Lest you begin to think that we at EconData.Net are solely concerned with matters academic and intellectual, this month we bring you some data from the School of Rock, or at least from our friends at Scarborough Research, who’ve tackled the chore of estimating variations in rock concert attendance among US metropolitan areas. Based on multi-market surveys, they estimate the number of adults in each designated market area (a geographic area used in marketing research that corresponds to media markets, and which is very roughly similar to metropolitan areas) that have attended a rock concert in the last year.
Which US cities rate highest for rock concert
attendance? You can find out, if
you visit:
http://www.scarborough.com/press_releases/Rock%20Concerts%20FINAL%206.14.04.pdf
As we announced last month, our monthly New Links feature is on
vacation. Much as we try to find everything on the web, we know there are
some great sites that we miss. If you have a candidate we should consider
for inclusion in our website--and publicity in this newsletter--please let us
know.
Keep in mind our editorial standards--we focus solely on websites with state and
substate socioeconomic data and generally list only sites that are national in
scope. Send your suggestions to:
comments@econdata.net