The Marine Economy Satellite Account measures the economic activity associated with the marine economy, identifies the industries responsible for producing these goods and services, and measures the output, value added, compensation, and employment associated with that production. Like other BEA satellite accounts, the MESA was built on BEA's comprehensive supply-use framework. The supply-use tables provide a detailed look at the relationships among industries and how each industry contributes to GDP. In practice, the MESA is a rearrangement of the published supply-use tables with new estimation methods that isolate marine-related spending and production. A variety of private and public data sources were used to identify marine-related spending and production to develop the MESA estimates.
An important feature of the MESA is the presentation of estimates of gross output and value added by marine economic activity, in addition to the traditional presentation of estimates by industry. This allows for the marine economy to be better analyzed in areas where significant economic activity occurs across a variety of traditional industries. For example, the marine tourism and recreation activity spans a variety of traditional industries, which can create difficulties when attempting to analyze the magnitude and growth of marine tourism and recreation. By presenting the statistics by activity, the MESA allows for a more focused examination of marine economic activity in the United States.
The geographic scope of the MESA includes the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans within the Exclusive Economic Zone (approximately 200 nautical miles off the U.S. coast) as well as marginal seas, such as the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, Long Island Sound, San Francisco Bay, and others. Also included is the U.S. shoreline directly along these bodies of water. Furthermore, the Great Lakes are included up to the international boundary with Canada.
For additional information on the marine economy statistics as well as the data sources and methodology that underlie their preparation, refer to Defining and Measuring the U.S. Ocean Economy.
https://www.bea.gov/system/files/2021-06/defining-and-measuring-the-united-states-ocean-economy.pdf
The Marine Economy Satellite Account was produced in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
BEA news release:
https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/marine-economy-satellite-account-2014-2020
NOAA news release:
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/marine-economy-continues-to-power-american-prosperity-despite-2020-downturn
Marine Economic Satellite Account:
https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/marine-economy
