The new OECD Weekly Tracker Index (Woloszko/OECD) has been published. Here is the resulting picture:
figure 1: Lewis-Mertens-Stock Weekly Economic Index (blue), OECD Weekly Tracker (tan), Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims US Weekly Economic Conditions Index plus 2% trend (green) Lilac shading represents hypothetical H1 Recession date.Source: NY Fed via Fred, OECD, Wisioand the authors’ calculations.
If a reading of 2.5 persists throughout the quarter, a WEI reading of 2.5 for the week ended Aug. 27 could be interpreted as a quarterly growth rate of 2.5%. The OECD weekly tracking reading of 2.0 can be interpreted as a year-on-year growth rate of 2.0% through 8/27 (note that the previous 8/20 tracking reading has been revised down by almost a percentage point).This Baumeister et al. The 2.1% reading for the week ended June 25 was interpreted as beating the long-term trend growth rate of 2.1%. The average growth rate of US GDP from 2000-19 was about 2%.
