When Dan Rather tells network TV news viewers about the economy, he often cites a key statistic called labor productivity. For example, he may tell viewers the nation’s labor productivity, or output per hour of nonfarm work, grew by 1.4 percent in 1997.

But John Haltiwanger of the Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies would like to be able to provide Rather and the nation with even more detailed statistics. He would like the aggregate productivity number broken down to measure the contributions of existing businesses, new businesses entering the market and businesses exiting the field.

“If you look just at aggregate productivity growth, you’re missing most of the story,” says Haltiwanger, who is chief economist at the U.S. Bureau of the Census. “It hides what is happening at the micro level — that some businesses may be doing spectacularly well and others may not be doing so well.”

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