gentlemen. Steven Kopitz wrote:
The other is vehicle mileage, which is either a very short-term lead (i.e., fails a month or so before the recession officially begins), or simultaneous, or a lag of up to 4-5 months if using the 12-month moving sum .
I downloaded the FRED series https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TRFVOLUSM227SFWA and plotted the series:
figure 1: Vehicle miles driven, in millions, seasonally adjusted (blue). The NBER uses shades of grey to define the peak and trough dates of the recession. DOE FHA via FRED, NBER.
Is negative VMT growth a leading indicator of recession? I created a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 when m/m grows negative and plotted (light blue bar).
figure 2: Negative VMT growth (blue bars). NBER-defined peak-to-valley decline dates are shaded in dark gray. DOE FHA calculated by FRED, NBER, and the authors.
Note that the negative growth was preceded by a one-month recession…but there were many non-recessions as well.
