Training Program

Officials responsible for compiling short-term or monthly economic indicators in central banks and statistical offices.

Participants should have a degree in economics or statistics or equivalent experience.

This course deals with identification and assessment of elementary indicators and techniques for combining them into a single index of economic activity (IEA) to track national trends. Indexes of economic activity bring together a range of elementary indicators to give timely general measures of economic activity. These measures give policy makers useful information that complements annual and quarterly GDP estimates, which are more comprehensive but usually only available after substantial lags and provide a more comprehensive picture than individual monthly and quarterly indicators, which reflect just a portion of the total economy.

This one-week course will cover the practical issues with the compilation of high frequency indicators (HFIs), and covers the following topics:

1. Scope and role of HFIs of economic activity and their relation with the SNA;
2. Overview of data sources-both traditional and non-traditional;
3. Assessment and selection of component series;
4. Introduction to benchmarking principles;
5. Introduction to seasonal adjustment; and
6. Dissemination, revision analysis, and relations with users.