Economic indicator

An economic indicator is a statistic about economic activity that allows analysis of past and current economic performance and supports predictions of future performance, particularly in the study of business cycles. Indicators are classified by timing into three types: leading indicators change before the economy as a whole changes and serve as short term predictors, lagging indicators usually change a few quarters after the economy does, and coincident indicators change at approximately the same time as the economy, describing its current state. Commonly cited examples include the unemployment rate, housing starts, the consumer price index, the inverted yield curve, the consumer leverage ratio, industrial production, business bankruptcies, gross domestic product, broadband penetration, and retail sales, with the National Bureau of Economic Research serving as the leading United States authority for dating business cycles and the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau among the principal government producers of these statistics. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/