Microproduct Data GuideIntermediate

BEA Regional Price Parities

BEA state and metropolitan Regional Price Parity archives for comparing relative consumer price levels across U.S. regions.

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At a Glance

Difficulty
Intermediate — some data preparation helps
Size
Tiny · ≤0.01 GB
Formats
CSV, ZIP
Access
Download
API Key
Not Required
Provider
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Updates
Annual
Last Verified
Sep 28, 2026
Source Type
Government Source
Data Terms
BEA information is public domain unless stated otherwise; cite BEA as source.
  • Python Syntax Checked

From Source to Product Signal

Test a Product Idea in Four Steps

BEA provides separate metropolitan MARPP and state SARPP archives. Start with five rows of the all-items metropolitan table from its versioned ZIP. An RPP is a relative price index, not a household budget or county-level cost measurement; state and metro values should not be mixed as one grain.

1

Check the Setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • An internet connection
  • The requests Python package
2

Access the Data

  1. 1.Read the official BEA RPP page and public-domain reuse guidance.
  2. 2.Download the MARPP archive and identify its metropolitan CSV member.
  3. 3.Keep the table, unit, geography, and year when interpreting values.
Open Official Source
3

Run the Python Example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install requests

import csv
import io
import itertools
from zipfile import ZipFile
import requests

response = requests.get("https://apps.bea.gov/regional/zip/MARPP.zip", timeout=30)
response.raise_for_status()
archive = ZipFile(io.BytesIO(response.content))
with archive.open("MARPP_MSA_2008_2024.csv") as member:
    rows = csv.DictReader(io.TextIOWrapper(member, encoding="utf-8-sig"))
    metros = (row for row in rows if "Metropolitan Statistical Area" in row["GeoName"])
    for row in itertools.islice(metros, 5):
        print(row["GeoFIPS"].strip(), row["GeoName"], row["Description"], row["2024"])
4

Test a Useful Signal

Inspect Metropolitan Price Parities

Check one published RPP year for a regional cost comparison.

  1. 01Filter to all-items index rows and retain BEA metropolitan identifiers.
  2. 02Compare two metros using the same year and table line.
  3. 03Explain why the index is not a direct household cost estimate.

Related Datasets

Dataset Details

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis is a government source. Last verified 2026-09-28. Temporal coverage: 2008-2024 in the current MARPP and SARPP archives.

Formats

CSVZIP

Provider

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

Data Terms

BEA information is public domain unless stated otherwise; cite BEA as source.

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