## High-Frequency Indicators of Economic Activity

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [High-Frequency Indicators of Economic Activity](https://www.imf.org/en/capacity-development/training/icdtc/courses/iea)

## Other formats

- [Markdown version](/en/capacity-development/training/icdtc/courses/iea/index.md)
- [Structured JSON version](/en/capacity-development/training/icdtc/courses/iea/index.json)
- [Bundle manifest](/en/capacity-development/training/icdtc/courses/iea/bundle-manifest.json)

## Bibliographic details
- Published: July 24, 2025

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### Overview
- Course title: High-Frequency Indicators of Economic Activity (IEA).
- Focus: Identification and assessment of elementary indicators and techniques to combine them into a single overall index of economic activity to track trends in the economy.
- Purpose: To produce timely overall measures of economic activity (flash estimates or indexes of economic activity) that:
  - Bring together a range of specific economic elementary indicators.
  - Complement annual and quarterly GDP estimates, which are more comprehensive but usually only available after substantial lags.
  - Provide a more comprehensive picture than a set of individual monthly and quarterly indicators, which are up-to-the-minute but reflect just a portion of the total economy.
- Orientation: Targeted to actual or potential compilers of short-term indicators in statistical offices and central banks and to those involved in data collection of monthly indicators.

### Target audience and qualifications
- Target audience:
  - Officials responsible for compiling short-term or monthly economic indicators in statistical offices and central banks.
- Qualifications:
  - Participants should have a degree in economics, statistics or equivalent experience.

### Practical components and data use
- Participants are expected to work with their own available monthly and quarterly time series during the course.
- These indicators will be used in the practical session to develop experimental estimates.

### Course objectives
- Upon completion, participants should be able to:
  - Explain the nature and potential uses of high frequency statistics on economic activity as well as their relation and consistency within the system of national accounts.
  - Develop a simple framework to compile an index of economic activity, from collection of source data to implementation of simple statistical methods and index compilation techniques.
  - Exploit useful short-term information contained in the IEA by applying some analytical tools, deriving tables, and statistical procedures.

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/capacity-development/training/icdtc/courses/iea_