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Using the Purchasing Managers' Index to assess the economy's strength and the likely direction of monetary policy

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  • Evan F. Koenig

Abstract

When economists are concerned that the economy may be about to change direction, one of the indicators to which they give special scrutiny is the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), released monthly by the Institute for Supply Management. This article discusses the construction and interpretation of the PMI and presents evidence of its usefulness as an indicator of growth in the manufacturing sector and the economy as a whole, and as a predictor of changes in Federal Reserve policy. PMI values above 47 generally signal expansion in manufacturing, while the critical value for positive GDP growth is around 40. Over the past fifteen years, PMI values above 52.5 have tended to be associated with rising short-term interest rates.> When economists are concerned that the economy may be about to change direction, one of the indicators to which they give special scrutiny is the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), released monthly by the Institute for Supply Management. This article discusses the construction and interpretation of the PMI and presents evidence of its usefulness as an indicator of growth in the manufacturing sector and the economy as a whole, and as a predictor of changes in Federal Reserve policy. PMI values above 47 generally signal expansion in manufacturing, while the critical value for positive GDP growth is around 40. Over the past fifteen years, PMI values above 52.5 have tended to be associated with rising short-term interest rates.>

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  • Evan F. Koenig, 2002. "Using the Purchasing Managers' Index to assess the economy's strength and the likely direction of monetary policy," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, vol. 1(6).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedder:y:2002:n:v.1no.6
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    1. Evan F. Koenig & Sheila Dolmas & Jeremy Piger, 2003. "The Use and Abuse of Real-Time Data in Economic Forecasting," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 618-628, August.
    2. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
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    5. Ethan S. Harris, 1991. "Tracking the economy with the purchasing managers' index," Research Paper 9124, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
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    7. Stephen K. McNees, 1986. "Modeling the Fed: a forward- looking monetary policy reaction function," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 3-8.
    8. R. Mark Rogers, 1992. "Forecasting industrial production: purchasing managers' versus production-worker hours data," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Jan, pages 25-36.
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Francois Meyer & Thomas Habanabakize, 2018. "Analysis of Relationships and Causality between Consumer Price Index (CPI), the Producer Price Index (PPI) and Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) in South Africa," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 10(6), pages 25-32.
    2. Poza, Carlos & Monge, Manuel, 2020. "A real time leading economic indicator based on text mining for the Spanish economy. Fractional cointegration VAR and Continuous Wavelet Transform analysis," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 163-175.
    3. Li, Jiahan & Chen, Weiye, 2014. "Forecasting macroeconomic time series: LASSO-based approaches and their forecast combinations with dynamic factor models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 996-1015.
    4. van den Hauwe, Sjoerd & Paap, Richard & van Dijk, Dick, 2013. "Bayesian forecasting of federal funds target rate decisions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 19-40.
    5. Rolando F. Peláez, 2018. "Improving the usefulness of the Purchasing Managers’ Index," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 53(4), pages 195-201, October.
    6. Kyungsu Kim, 2025. "Unemployment Dynamics Forecasting with Machine Learning Regression Models," Papers 2505.01933, arXiv.org.
    7. Christiansen, Charlotte & Eriksen, Jonas Nygaard & Møller, Stig Vinther, 2014. "Forecasting US recessions: The role of sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 459-468.
    8. Valentina Aprigliano, 2011. "The relationship between the PMI and the Italian index of industrial production and the impact of the latest economic crisis," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 820, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Khundrakpam, Jeevan Kumar & George, Asish Thomas, 2012. "An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between WPI and PMI-Manufacturing Price Indices in India," MPRA Paper 50929, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. repec:ecb:ecbwps:20111428 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Wang, Mei-Chih & Tsangyao Chang, 2019. "Revisiting Oil Prices, Producer Price Index (PPI), and the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) Nexus: China and the USA," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(8), pages 913-925, August.
    12. Lahiri, Kajal & Monokroussos, George, 2013. "Nowcasting US GDP: The role of ISM business surveys," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 644-658.
    13. Lombardi, Marco J. & Godbout, Claudia, 2012. "Short-term forecasting of the Japanese economy using factor models," Working Paper Series 1428, European Central Bank.
    14. Gabe de Bondt, 2012. "Nowcasting: Trust the Purchasing Managers’ Index or wait for the flash GDP estimate?," EcoMod2012 3896, EcoMod.
    15. Daragh Clancy, 2013. "Output Gap Estimation Uncertainty: Extracting the TFP Cycle Using an Aggregated PMI Series," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 44(1), pages 1-18.
    16. Lan, Yueqin & Huang, Yong & Yan, Chao, 2021. "Investor sentiment and stock price: Empirical evidence from Chinese SEOs," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 703-714.
    17. Herwadkar, Snehal S. & Ghosh, Saurabh, 2020. "Is PMI a good leading indicator of industrial production?: Evidence from India," MPRA Paper 97924, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Schnatz, Bernd & D'Agostino, Antonello, 2012. "Survey-based nowcasting of US growth: a real-time forecast comparison over more than 40 years," Working Paper Series 1455, European Central Bank.
    19. Claudia Godbout & Jocelyn Jacob, 2010. "Le pouvoir de prévision des indices PMI," Discussion Papers 10-3, Bank of Canada.
    20. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2014. "Purchasing and supply managers provide early clues on the direction of the US economy: An application of a new market-timing test," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 599-618.

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