Sharon Panek

Chief, GDP by Metropolitan Area
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Washington, DC

For nearly thirty years, Sharon has researched and consulted on a variety of regional economic issues and held positions in both the private and public sectors. Sharon’s interest in regional economics, particularly economic development, led her to the BEA in 2000 after many years as an economic consultant and as a researcher at The Brookings Institution. She oversees the production of BEA’s GDP by metropolitan area statistics and state GDP statistics for services-producing industries. Sharon is currently leading the development of GDP by county statistics. Sharon has also written several articles for the Survey of Current Business and has been acknowledged for her research in many other publications. Sharon has earned six awards for innovation in the field of regional statistics from the U. S. Department of Commerce, including the Gold Medal for developing GDP by metropolitan area statistics (2007) and the Silver Award for the internal system she developed to track local economies (2013).