The cost of doing business: input shares and trends in input-related price indexes

This article analyzes input shares data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) productivity program to compare how reliant different sectors were on capital, labor, energy, materials, and services inputs from 2019 through 2023. The article also highlights trends in the Producer Price Index (PPI) program’s intermediate demand indexes, alongside other BLS input-related indexes, from December 2018 to December 2023. December 2018 is when BLS began publishing its experimental satellite inputs to industry indexes, and the following 5-year period can be used to analyze the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and other events on inflation. The input shares and price data can be used together to better understand how real-world events impact final demand prices. Data users may replicate the analytical framework introduced in this article with more recent and industry-specific data for timelier insights specific to their needs.