Trend Lines

Back in October I posted about the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s leading index for each of the 50 states.  The Fed’s leading index for each state contains the same, six, state and national variables so I think they miss some of key indicators that can affect individual states but they are a great way to quickly compare the trends across states.  It is  also good to get a dispassionate, “outsider’s” view of the direction of every state’s (including your own)  economy.  Below is the latest summary of what each state’s  leading index is saying about the growth prospects over the next six months.

Unfortunately, NH is again showing up in the group of states that is expected to lag in economic growth over the short-term.  PolEcon’s NH Leading index contains more NH specific economic indicators than does the Philly Fed’s NH Leading Index but the two indices generally agree on the short-term direction of the NH economy.  Not this time.  PolEcon’s NH leading Index is signalling an uptick in the rate of NH’s employment growth.  As I noted back in October, statistical tests show a stronger relationship between PolEcon’s Leading Index and the rate of NH’s employment growth than the relationship between the Philly Fed NH Index and NH’s employment growth.  I wish I could say I was confident my index was going to be more accurate this time but I can’t.  I do take some comfort in knowing  that whenever I have had the most doubts about the predictive ability of the NH Leading Index it always seems to do the most to confirm its value.

This entry was posted on February 7, 2013 at 11:56 am and is filed under employment, Leading Index, NH Economy. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Economy, Leading Index, NH, state