Global| Jan 25 2019State Coincident Indexes
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Summary
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's December estimates of state coincident activity continue to show a fairly moderate range of growth among the states, with 34 (2 more than the initial results for November) seeing gains between [...]
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's December estimates of state coincident activity continue to show a fairly moderate range of growth among the states, with 34 (2 more than the initial results for November) seeing gains between 2% and 4% over the prior 12 months. However, both Florida and Texas had increases a touch above 4%. New Mexico had the largest increase, at 6.1%. Once again, Maine and Hawaii were in the bottom spots—Hawaii's increase was a barely positive .1%.
The 3 months ending in December showed some mildly greater dispersion than was the case in November. 21 states recorded increases from .5% to 1%, down from the 23 in that range one month earlier. rates consistent with 12-month growth of 2% to 4%. 15 states had larger gains; 14 states had lower ones: many of these are located in the center of the nation, ranging from Louisiana to North Dakota on one axis, and West Virginia to Colorado on anther (however, the increased in some of these states were actually .49%).. The fastest growing states were in the Northeast: Massachusetts, Maryland, and Delaware, while only 2 Western states (Nevada and Washington) were reported to have had increases above 1%. 3 states had declines: Once again, Hawaii and Maine, but also Montana (the Philly Fed rounded its .05% drop to zero in the map in the release)—indicating that the mainland West is not a region of uniform fast growth.
In the November-December period 6 states—two more than in the preliminary October-November report—had drops in their index. Maine, at least, avoided a drop, though its index was unchanged. Hawaii, however, had the largest decline in the nation. South Dakota, had the largest increase, while the trio of Northeast states with strong 3-month gains (Massachusetts, Maryland, and Delaware) followed.
The December figures suggest that the move toward convergent growth across the nation may be ebbing, with, perhaps, some weakness in the Mississippi basin (usually not viewed as an economic region: comparabilities between West Virginia and Colorado seem fairly limited).
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.