Economic indicator
An economic indicator (or business indicator) is a statistic about the economy. Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance.
Economic indicators include various indices, earnings reports, and economic summaries, such as unemployment, housing starts, Consumer Price Index (a measure for inflation), industrial production, bankruptcies, Gross Domestic Product, broadband internet penetration, retail sales, stock market prices, and money supply changes. Economic indicators are primarily studied in a branch of macroeconomics called "business cycles". The leading business cycle dating committee in the United States of America is the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the field of labor economics and statistics. Other producers of economic indicators includes the United States Census Bureau and United States Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Economic indicators fall into three categories: leading, lagging and coincident.
List of Economic Indicators
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (nominal and real) (for the entire nation or per individual)
- Index of Leading Indicators
- Gross national happiness (GNH), a new concept relating happiness with economic growth
- Population
- Labor Force: Employment, Unemployment rate, Average Weekly earnings, Job security
- Public Expenditure, Revenues, Budget Surplus and Deficit, National Debt
- Personal Income, Expenditure, Savings
- Broadband Internet Penetration
- International: Balance of Payments (Current Account & Balance of Trade)
- Productivity Survey
- Manufacturing output, Capacity Utilization, Inventories
- Money supply, Interest Rates, Yield on various financial Instruments and Yield Curves.
- Stock Market Indices
- Inflation, CPI, Producer Price Index
- New Home Sales
- Retail Sales, Auto Sales
- Lagging indicator, a historical indicator following an event which reacts slowly to economic changes
- Genuine Progress Indicator, a concept in ecological economics and welfare economics that has been suggested as a replacement metric for gross domestic product
Note: Some economic indicators like the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index can be purchased for a fee prior to their release to the public.
See also
- Economic calendar
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Consumer price index
- Core inflation
- The Conference Board
- Fundamental analysis
- Inflation
- table of economic indicators