The Bureau of Economic Analysis provides data for real private nonresidential fixed investment in table form at www.bea.govLinks to an external site..

• Access the BEA interactively by first clicking on "View" Gross Domestic Productunder "Principle Federal Economic Indicators."
• Then click on "Explore Product View"
• Scroll down a bit and click on "Interactive Data," then click on "GDP and the National Income and Product Account (NIPA) Historical Tables."
• Then click on the orange button, "Interactive Data Tables"
• Click on Section 5, "Saving and Investment."
• Scroll down until you find Table 5.3.1, "Percentage Change From Preceding Period in Real Private Fixed Investment by Type."
• Look at lines 2, 9, and 16, and answer the following questions:
  1. Has recent real private nonresidential fixed investment been "volatile" (as measured by percentage change from previous quarters)? Use line 2 and just eyeball the data. What was the largest positive percentage change and what was the largest negative percentage change?
  2. Using Table 5.3.5 and the most recent quarter's data. (You can get to other tables by clicking on the tab towards the top under National Income and Product Accounts, NIPA Tables.) What is the largest component of Private Fixed Investment, (a) structures, (b) equipment or (c) intellectual property products in billions of dollars? What is the amount?
  3. Which of these three components has been more volatile over the last 8 quarters or so? (Use table 5.3.2) Again, just eyeball the data. Which component had the largest percentage changes?
  4. How do recent quarterly percentage changes compare with the previous years' quarterly changes? More or less volatile? Just use your best judgement.
  5. Looking at the Private Fixed Investment data (Table 5.3.1), and based on the most recent couple of quarters of data, what investment forecast would you make for each component (structures, equipment, and intellectual property ) for the upcoming year? Do you think the category would grow, slow down, or stay about the same?