Some people think we’re in a recession right now, Some Consider this in the past (we are currently in the second half of 2022). In fact, some economists surveyed by NABE believe that we are now in a recession (as shown in the chart below). Here are some reminders of our best estimates of the current macro picture.
First are the findings:
resource: NABE, 22 August 2022 survey published.
The first bar doesn’t quite match the recession in the first half of 2022, as we’re halfway through the third quarter, but it’s probably close enough…
This Professional Forecaster Survey Published in August An increase in the percentage of respondents who showed negative GDP growth forecast for the third quarter of 2022 (reviewing GDP is not a key indicator of whether we are in a recession, according to NBER BCDC).
Given BEA’s official GDP, IHS Markit’s (formerly macroeconomic advisors) monthly GDP, and key macro indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, what’s our best guess for the current situation? As shown in Figure 1 below.
figure 1: Nonfarm payrolls (dark blue), Bloomberg consensus as of Aug. 23 (blue+), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), 2012 excluding transferred personal income (green), manufacturing and trade sales in 2012 dollars (black), consumption in 2012 dollars (light blue), monthly GDP in 2012 dollars (pink), official GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0 . The lilac shading indicates a hypothetical 2022H1 recession. Sources: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, via FRED, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (published August 1, 2022), NBER, and author’s calculations.
Note that Q2’s -0.9% q/q SAAR advance release data is subject to revision. The current IHS Markit tracking number is -0.3%. in other words, Watch out for corrections – especially GDP corrections.
Below is the impact of weekly indicators on GDP levels for this period compared to monthly GDP.
figure 2: GDP in billions Ch.2012$ SAAR from IHS Markit (blue), implied by Lewis-Mertens-Stock WEI (tan), implied by Baumeister et al. WECI (green), implied by the OECD Weekly Tracker (red), based on a lagged 3-month moving average of IHS Markit GDP. The lilac shading indicates a hypothetical 2022H1 recession. Source: Published by IHS Markit August 1, 2022, NY Fed via calculations by FRED, Baumeister et al, OECD and authors.
