Economics Atlas

How Wealth Is Ordered
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Economic Indicator

University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index

Business and Consumer Sentiment

The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, known as the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index or MCSI, measures US consumer attitudes and expectations about personal finances, business conditions and buying conditions, based on telephone surveys of a nationally representative sample of households conducted continuously since 1978 (with the underlying survey dating to 1946) and released in preliminary and final readings each month. Along with the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, it is one of the two most widely cited consumer-sentiment gauges in the United States, and its inflation-expectations component is watched particularly closely by the Federal Reserve as a signal of whether the public still expects the Fed to keep inflation under control.

Facts
Classification
Release FrequencySourced to the subject's own account
Monthly 1
Timing ClassSourced to the subject's own account
Leading 1
Geography
Geographic Scope
United States (University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers) 2
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Wikipedia, "University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index", lead section
    The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is a consumer confidence index published monthly by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. The index is normalized to have a value of 100 in the first quarter of 1966.
  • Introduction, frequency
    The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is a consumer confidence index published monthly by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.
  • Introduction, timing-class
    The Index of Consumer Expectations (a sub-index of ICS) is included in the Leading Indicator Composite Index published by the U.S.
View the Source
2. University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.