Global| Sep 28 2018State Coincident Indexes
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Summary
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity show that all states have grown over the last 12 months. As was noticed for the job numbers, there are some signs of convergence in growth over that [...]
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity show that all states have grown over the last 12 months. As was noticed for the job numbers, there are some signs of convergence in growth over that period. Only 5 states reported gains of less than 2 percent, with the lowest Arkansas' 1.3 percent (the national figures was 2.9 percent). New Mexico, at 5.9 percent, clocked the biggest gain, and most of the other states reporting increases above 4 percent also located in the West. Along with Arkansas, the more slowly growing states were generally concentrated in or near the lower Mississippi Valley (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas—but Maryland was also in the group).
More recently (the last 3 months), 4 states have seen declines in activity: Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, and Maine, and 7 other states had meager gains of .5 percent or lower. Nearly half the states, though, experienced quite solid gains of 1 percent or higher, with Montana seeing an increase as high as its mountains (2.8 percent).
The general picture then seems to be one of fairly widespread growth, though that is at longer horizons. There is a bit of froth in the higher frequency numbers.
Charles Steindel
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Charles Steindel has been editor of Business Economics, the journal of the National Association for Business Economics, since 2016. From 2014 to 2021 he was Resident Scholar at the Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey. From 2010 to 2014 he was the first Chief Economist of the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, with responsibilities for economic and revenue projections and analysis of state economic policy. He came to the Treasury after a long career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he played a major role in forecasting and policy advice and rose to the rank of Senior Vice-President. He has served in leadership positions in a number of professional organizations. In 2011 he received the William F. Butler Award from the New York Association for Business Economics, is a fellow of NABE and of the Money Marketeers of New York University, and has received several awards for articles published in Business Economics. In 2017 he delivered Ramapo College's Sebastian J. Raciti Memorial Lecture. He is a member of the panel for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Survey of Professional Forecasters and of the Committee on Research in Income and Wealth. He has published papers in a range of areas, and is the author of Economic Indicators for Professionals: Putting the Statistics into Perspective. He received his bachelor's degree from Emory University, his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a National Association for Business Economics Certified Business EconomistTM.