Economic Indicators: A Beginner's Guide

• Leading economic indicators change before the economy changes. Stock market returns are a leading indicator, as the stock market usually begins to decline before the economy declines and they improve before the economy begins to pull out of a recession.
• A lagged economic indicator is one that does not change direction until a few quarters after the economy does. The unemployment rate is a lagged economic indicator.
• A coincident economic indicator is one that simply moves at the same time the economy does. The Gross Domestic Product is a coincident indicator.

These tend to be the broadest measures of economic performance and include such statistics as:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [published quarterly]
• Real GDP [quarterly]
• Implicit Price Deflator for GDP [quarterly]
• Business Output [quarterly]
• National Income [quarterly]
• Consumption Expenditure [quarterly]
• Corporate Profits[quarterly]
• Real Gross Private Domestic Investment [quarterly].

These statistics cover how strong the labor market is and they include the following:

• The Unemployment Rate [monthly]
• Level of Civilian Employment[monthly]
• Average Weekly Hours, Hourly Earnings, and Weekly Earnings[monthly]
• Labor Productivity [quarterly].

These statistics cover how much businesses are producing and the level of new construction in the economy:

• Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization [monthly]
• New Construction [monthly]
• New Private Housing and Vacancy Rates [monthly]
• Business Sales and Inventories [monthly]
• Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders [monthly].

This category includes both the prices consumers pay as well as the prices businesses pay for raw materials and include:

• Producer Prices [monthly]
• Consumer Prices [monthly]
• Prices Received And Paid By Farmers [monthly]

These measures are all measures of changes in the price level and thus measure inflation. Inflation is procyclical and a coincident economic indicator.

These statistics measure the amount of money in the economy as well as interest rates and include:

• Money Stock (M1, M2, and M3) [monthly]
• Bank Credit at All Commercial Banks [monthly]
• Consumer Credit [monthly]
• Interest Rates and Bond Yields [weekly and monthly]
• Stock Prices and Yields [weekly and monthly].

These are measures of government spending and government deficits and debts:

• Federal Receipts (Revenue)[yearly]
• Federal Outlays (Expenses) [yearly]
• Federal Debt [yearly].

Governments generally try to stimulate the economy during recessions and to do so they increase spending without raising taxes. This causes both government spending and government debt to rise during a recession, so they are countercyclical economic indicators. They tend to be coincident to the business cycle.