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MEASURING THE ELECTRONIC ECONOMY

U.S. Census Bureau's new Internet site devoted exclusively to "Measuring the Electronic Economy." It features recent and upcoming releases, information on methods, classification systems, and background papers.

E-commerce data were collected in four separate Census Bureau surveys. These surveys used different measures of economic activity such as shipments for manufacturing, sales for wholesale and retail trade, and revenues for service industries. Consequently, measures of total economic and e-commerce activity vary by economic sector, are conceptually and definitionally different, and therefore, are not additive. The Census Bureau’s e-commerce measures report the value of goods and services sold online whether over open networks such as the Internet, or over proprietary networks running systems such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Although E-Stats does not cover the entire U.S. economy, this report covers North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industries that accounted for approximately 70 percent of economic activity measured in the 1997 Economic Census. The report does not cover agriculture, mining, utilities, construction, nonmerchant wholesalers, and approximately one-third of service-related industries.
http://www.census.gov/eos/www/ebusiness614.htm