Global| May 27 2020State Coincident Indexes in April
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
The April results for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's state coincident indexes were as horrid as one would expect. Only 4 states (Arizona, Georgia, Texas, and Nebraska) had one-month declines smaller than 10 percent [...]
The April results for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's state coincident indexes were as horrid as one would expect. Only 4 states (Arizona, Georgia, Texas, and Nebraska) had one-month declines smaller than 10 percent (Arizona's was 5.5 percent); 8 had drops larger than 30 percent (Michigan was down 44.2 percent). Three-month results were comparable. On its web site the Bank puts up a map illustrating the three-month results. States with declines larger than 1 percent are shown in red, and that is what one sees—all 50 in red.
There is an oddity, though, about the results. There is a separate index for the nation as a whole compiled using the same data and techniques as for each state. The national index fell 12 percent from March to April, which was noticeably better than state norms. Only 8 states had declines less than that; the 4 noted above, as well as Colorado, Florida, Wyoming, and Mississippi. Of course, Texas and Florida are 2 of the 4 largest states, and Georgia is also big, but given the huge declines elsewhere a national drop of as “little” as 12 percent was surprising. In the current environment, though, the margins of error in both state and national results may be much larger than in ordinary times.
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.