Download This PaperMeasuring Real Activity Using a Weekly Economic Index
25 Pages Posted: 14 Apr 2020 Last revised: 14 Sep 2020
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Measuring Real Activity Using a Weekly Economic Index
U.S. Economic Activity During the Early Weeks of the SARS-Cov-2 Outbreak
Date Written: April 1, 2020
Abstract
This paper describes a weekly economic index (WEI) developed to track the rapid economic developments associated with the onset of and policy response to the novel coronavirus in the United States. The WEI is a weekly composite index of real economic activity, with eight of ten series available the Thursday after the end of the reference week. In addition to being a weekly real activity index, the WEI has strong predictive power for output measures and provided an accurate nowcast of current-quarter GDP growth in the first half of 2020. We document how the WEI responded to key events and data releases during the first six months of the pandemic.
Keywords: weekly economic index, high frequency, measurement of economic activity, forecasting
JEL Classification: C51, E01, E66
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Mihir Trivedi
Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of New York ( email )
33 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10045
United States