Virtual: High-Frequency Indicators of Economic Activity

Source details

Session No.: CE 21.44 V
Location: Kuwait City, Kuwait
Date: November 1-4, 2021 (1 week)
Delivery Method: Virtual Training
Primary Language: English
Status: Deadline passed
Target Audience: Officials responsible for compiling short-term or monthly economic indicators in central banks and statistical offices.
Qualifications: Participants should have a degree in economics or statistics or equivalent experience.
Presented by: IMF's Statistics Department

Discusses identification and assessment of indicators and techniques for combining indicators into a single overall index of economic activity to track trends in the economy.
Covers construction of flash estimates or indexes of economic activity that bring together a range of specific economic indicators to give timely overall measures of economic trends.
Clarifies the relation and consistency of high-frequency statistics with the system of national accounts, and how they complement annual and quarterly GDP estimates and partial monthly and quarterly indicators.
Oriented toward actual or potential compilers of short-term indicators in central banks and statistical offices and those involved in data collection of monthly indicators.
Participants are expected to prepare a list of available monthly and quarterly indicators for their country and assemble data for use in the workshop component to develop experimental estimates.

Explain the nature and potential uses of high-frequency statistics on economic activity and their relation to and consistency with the system of national accounts.
Design a simple framework for compiling an index of economic activity, from collection of source data to application of simple statistical methods and index compilation techniques.
Exploit useful short-term information contained in the IEA by applying analytical tools, deriving tables, and statistical procedures.

Prepare and assemble a list of available monthly and quarterly indicators for their country.
Use assembled indicators in workshop exercises to develop experimental estimates and flash indices of economic activity.
Apply simple statistical methods and index compilation techniques to combine indicators into a single overall index.