Months for benchmark dominance: A new accuracy measure for state employment data

Keith Phillips and Judy S. Teng

Economics Letters, 2020, vol. 187, issue C

Abstract: Employment growth is one of the most commonly used measures of the economic health of U.S. states. While the CES jobs data is timely and available by industry, for many states the early estimates are subject to large revisions, significantly reducing the usefulness of the series. Much of the error, however, cancels out when taking growth over several months. In this paper we evaluate the benchmark revisions by state and produce a quality guidepost that determines the months of growth needed to be calculated such that the early estimates are more representative of the benchmark growth than due to error.

Keywords: Data revision; Data accuracy; Payroll employment; Current analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 R1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:187:y:2020:i:c:s0165176519304409

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108873

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