Stock-Watson Experimental
Coincident,
Leading and Recession Indexes
The Stock-Watson Indicators Retire
After 14 years and 6 months of monthly releases, we have retired the
Stock-Watson XRI and related series. The
last monthly release was for December 2003.
One important purpose of the monthly XRI reports was to provide
interested entities with forecasts about the current and future state of the
business cycle. A second important
purpose was to establish a real-time public forecasting record that could serve
as the basis for further research and revision.
We believe that we have achieved these two objectives. Over the past decade, there has been
considerable progress on next generation methods for assessing the current
state of the business cycle and for making near-term forecasts. Some of this research has produced new
real-time indexes.
The most direct successor of the Stock-Watson indexes is the Chicago Fed
National Activity Index (CFNAI), a monthly index
constructed using 85 monthly indicators based on an extension of the
methodology used to construct the original Stock-Watson XCI. The CFNAI is available at,
http://www.chicagofed.org/economic_research_and_data/cfnai.cfm
A coincident index for the Euro-zone, also based on an extension of the
Stock-Watson XCI methodology, is available through the CEPR in real time at,
http://www.cepr.org/data/eurocoin
Back Releases
For now, historical values of the press release are available at this Web
site. For example, the September 2002
report is stored at the location,
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~.JStock.Academic.Ksg/xri/0209/pr_0209.htm.
Historical values (produced in real time) are also available. For example, the historical values based on
data data through September 2002 are available at the location,
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~.JStock.Academic.Ksg/xri/0209/xindex.asc
Back releases for other months are available by modifying the yymm code
in the above addresses.
Note that the Web server has releases for September 1999 through December
2003. Earlier releases were circulated
by hard copy and those releases are available by request (contact James Stock
at james_stock@harvard.edu).
James H. Stock
Mark W. Watson
This page last revised June 22, 2004