This publication provides a detailed description of the Sources and Methods used in the compilation of the quantitative indicators published in the quarterly Indicators of Industrial Activity.

The consumer price index (CPI) measures the rate at which prices of consumer goods and services change over time. It is used as a key indicator of economic performance, as well as in the setting of monetary and socio-economic policy such as indexation of wages and social security benefits, purchasing power parities and inflation measures. This manual contains methodological guidelines for statistical offices and other agencies responsible for constructing and calculating CPIs, and also examines underlying economic and statistical concepts involved. Topics covered include: expenditure weights, sampling, price collection, quality adjustment, sampling, price indices calculations, errors and bias, organisation and management, dissemination, index number theory, durables and user costs.

Now revised and expanded, this widely-used desk reference provides quick and easy access to current and reliable data on the major statistical measures of the U.S. economy. Equally useful for students, general readers, economists, analysts, journalists, and investors, the guide provides concise, jargon-free explanations of the meaning, use, and availability of more than 70 macroeconomic indicators, including websites, recent trends, and current data.

Developed fifty years ago by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the analytic methods of business cycles and economic indicators enable economists to forecast economic trends by examining the repetitive sequences that occur in business cycles. The methodology has proven to be an inexpensive and useful tool that is now used extensively throughout the world. In recent years, however, significant new developments have emerged in the field of business cycles and economic indicators. This volume contains twenty-two articles by international experts who are working with new and innovative approaches to indicator research. They cover advances in three broad areas of research: the use of new developments in economic theory and time-series analysis to rationalise existing systems of indicators; more appropriate methods to evaluate the forecasting records of leading indicators, particularly of turning point probability; and the development of new indicators.

Existing economic indicators and indexes assess economic activity but no single indicator measures the general macro-economic performance of a nation, state, or region in a methodologically simple and intuitive way. This paper proposes a simple, yet informative metric called the Economic Performance Index (EPI). The EPI represents a step toward clarity, by combining data on inflation, unemployment, government deficit, and GDP growth into a single indicator. In contrast to other indexes, the EPI does not use complicated mathematical procedures but was designed for simplicity, making it easier for professionals and laypeople alike to understand and apply to the economy. To maximize ease of understanding, we adopt a descriptive grading system. In addition to a Raw EPI that gives equal weights to its components, we construct a Weighted EPI and show that both indexes perform similarly for U.S. data. To demonstrate the validity of the EPI, we conduct a review of U.S. history from 1790 to 2012. We show that the EPI reflects the major events in U.S. history, including wars, periods of economic prosperity and booms, along with economic depressions, recessions, and even panics. Furthermore, the EPI not only captures official recessions over the past century but also allows for measuring and comparing their relative severity. Even though the EPI is simple by its construction, we show that its dynamics are similar to those of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI).

We are bombarded with economic numbers: unemployment, retail sales, inflation, GDP—the list goes on and on. Some analyst or another is constantly telling us about an obscure statistic that is the key to our future, or is apparently the indicator that the "Fed" will be using to key off its decisions. With economic numbers playing such a central role in the national and world dialogue on policy and markets, and spilling over into the political arena, a broad review of what they are all about is timely. This book reviews the critical US economic data, and how one may put the numbers into an intellectual structure that will depict evolving economic reality. The work is aimed at those who want and need to get some understanding about how the data contributes to a big picture of the economy and guides policy. The objective is for the reader to grasp the overall logic of the data—how each piece of the puzzle contributes to our understanding of the overall economy. This is the way the Fed looks at the numbers. There are other books that go through the economic numbers, but they do so in a "bottom-up" fashion, describing a series in some detail and adding something about how financial markets may respond to it. This book naturally has considerable discussion of series, but views them as part of the overall mosaic, not items of fundamental interest in themselves.