The ATUS represents the opening of a new and exciting frontier in economic measurement. With time series data and the rich micro dataset associated with the ATUS, it will be possible to more accurately measure time use and its impact on a number of important economic areas, such as the analysis of consumer demand for items ranging from consumer durables to healthcare. Other expansions that would be possible—with parallel expansions in related source data—include satellite input–output accounts for household production, independent measurements of the inputs and outputs of household production, the cyclical impact of household production, as well as the impact on poverty and other statistics of household production.
Finally, as the United States and other countries—partly through the work of such groups as the MTUS and the UN Delhi Group on Informal Sector Statistics—harmonize their accounting for household production, international comparisons of economic performance will be facilitated, especially for developing economies where nonmarket production is more prevalent