Measuring Global Economic Activity

James Hamilton

No 25778, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: A number of economic studies have used a proxy for world real economic activity derived from shipping costs. This measure turns out to depend on a normalization that has substantive consequences of which users of the index had been unaware prior to this paper. This paper further evaluates this and alternative measures in terms of treatment of trends, coherence with world output, and ability to predict commodity prices. I conclude that measures derived from world industrial production offer a better indicator of global real economic activity.

JEL-codes: E01 Q02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int and nep-mac
Note: EEE EFG
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

Published as James D. Hamilton, 2021. "Measuring global economic activity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, vol 36(3), pages 293-303.

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