IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v12y1994i1p52-66.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why The Composite Index Of Leading Indicators Does Not Lead

Author

Listed:
  • EVAN F. KOENIG
  • KENNETH M. EMERY

Abstract

"This paper assesses the real-time performance of the Commerce Department's composite index of leading indicators. The authors find that the composite leading index has failed to provide reliable advance warning of cyclical turning points. One reason for this failure is that the leading index's transition from expansion to contraction generally is not very sharp. Consequently, discerning real-time cyclical peaks in the index is difficult. Transitions from contraction to expansion on average are sharp. However, cyclical troughs in the leading index often precede cyclical troughs in the economy by only a few months. Thus, even timely recognition of troughs in the leading index fails to provide advance warning of turnarounds in the general level of economic activity". Copyright 1994 Western Economic Association International.

Suggested Citation

  • Evan F. Koenig & Kenneth M. Emery, 1994. "Why The Composite Index Of Leading Indicators Does Not Lead," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(1), pages 52-66, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:12:y:1994:i:1:p:52-66
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1994.tb00412.x
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emery, Kenneth M. & Koenig, Evan F., 1992. "Forecasting turning points : Is a two-state characterization of the business cycle appropriate?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 431-435, August.
    2. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1990. "A Nonparametric Investigation of Duration Dependence in the American Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 596-616, June.
    3. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1992. "A procedure for predicting recessions with leading indicators: econometric issues and recent performance," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues 92-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    4. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1989. "Scoring the Leading Indicators," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(3), pages 369-391, July.
    5. Saul H. Hymans, 1973. "On the Use of Leading Indicators to Predict Cyclical Turning Points," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 4(2), pages 339-384.
    6. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1993. "A Procedure for Predicting Recessions with Leading Indicators: Econometric Issues and Recent Experience," NBER Chapters,in: Business Cycles, Indicators and Forecasting, pages 95-156 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Franklin D. Berger & Keith R. Phillips, 1994. "Solving the mystery of the disappearing January blip in state employment data," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q II, pages 53-62.
    2. Sergey V. Smirnov & Daria A. Avdeeva, 2016. "Wishful Bias in Predicting Us Recessions: Indirect Evidence," HSE Working papers WP BRP 135/EC/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    3. Franklin D. Berger & Keith R. Phillips, 1994. "The disappearing January blip and other state employment mysteries," Working Papers 9403, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    4. Gregory W. Huffman, 1994. "A primer on the nature of business cycles," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q I, pages 27-41.
    5. Keith R. Phillips & Lucinda Vargas & Victor Zarnowitz, 1996. "New tools for analyzing the Mexican economy: indexes of coincident and leading economic indicators," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q II.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:12:y:1994:i:1:p:52-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing) or (Christopher F. Baum). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.