Economic indicator historical data

Inflation Rate

The data given on this page shows an annual change in the Consumer Price Index. The CPI measures changes in the price level of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The CPI is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and services and averaging them. The items weight according to their importance. Depending on the country, the highest weights are usually given to the food, energy, housing, clothing, medical care, transportation and household equipment.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)
The Consumer Price Index or CPI measures changes in the prices paid by consumers for a basket of goods and services.

Core Consumer Prices

Core Inflation Rate
The data given on this page shows an annual change in the Consumer Price Index. The CPI measures changes in the price level of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The CPI is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and services and averaging them. The items weight according to their importance. Depending on the country, the highest weights are usually given to the food, energy, housing, clothing, medical care, transportation and household equipment.

Export Prices
Export Prices refers to the rate of change in the prices of goods and services sold by residents of that country to foreign buyers. Export Prices are heavily affected by exchange rates.

GDP Deflator
GDP deflator, also known as the implicit price index, tracks the cost of all new, domestically produced, final goods and services in an economy relative to the purchasing power. It is calculated by dividing the nominal GDP value by the real GDP value (nominal GDP adjusted by inflation) and multiplying by 100.

Import Prices
Import Prices refers to the rate of change in the prices of goods and services purchased by residents of that country from, and supplied by, foreign sellers.

Producer Prices
Producer Price Index, also referred as Wholesale Price Index, measures the average change in price of goods and services sold by manufacturers and producers in the wholesale market during a given period. The PPI takes into account three areas of production: finished goods, intermediate goods, and raw materials or crude commodities.

Trade

Balance of Trade
The balance of trade is the difference between the monetary value of exports and imports in an economy over a certain period of time. A positive balance of trade is known as a trade surplus and occurs when value of exports is higher than that of imports; a negative balance of trade is known as a trade deficit or a trade gap.

Capital Flows
Capital Flows refer to the capital account and the financial account of a country’s balance of payments. Transactions included in those accounts are simply the transfer of ownership of assets from residents of one country to residents of another. In detail, the Capital account records transfers of goods and financial assets by migrants leaving or entering a country and transfers of non-financial non-produced goods such as gift and inheritance taxes, patents, copyrights, royalties. The Financial account records transactions on government-owned assets, foreign direct investments, global monetary flows related to investment in business, real estate, bonds and stocks, private sector assets held in other countries and local assets held by foreigners.

Current Account
Current Account is the sum of the balance of trade (exports minus imports of goods and services), net factor income (such as interest and dividends) and net transfer payments (such as foreign aid). The balance of trade is typically the most important part of the current account. And a current account surplus is usually associated with trade surplus. However, for the few countries with substantial overseas assets or liabilities, net factor payments may be significant. Positive net sales to abroad generally contribute to a current account surplus as the value interest or dividends generated abroad is bigger than the value of interest or dividends generated from foreign capital in the country. Net transfer payments are very important part of the current account in poor and developing countries as workers' remittances, donations, aids and grants and official assistance may balance high trade deficits.

Current Account to GDP
The Current account balance as a percent of GDP provides an indication on the level of international competiveness of a country. Usually, countries recording a strong current account surplus have an economy heavily dependent on exports revenues, with high savings ratings but weak domestic demand. On the other hand, countries recording a current account deficit have strong imports, a low saving rates and high personal consumption rates as a percentage of disposable incomes.

Exports
Exports measure the amount of goods or services that domestic producers provide to foreign consumers by. It is a good that is sent to another country for sale. In the past, export of commercial quantities of goods normally required involvement of the customs authorities in both the country of export and the country of import. More recently, with the advent of small trades over the internet such as through Amazon and e-Bay, exports have largely bypassed the involvement of Customs in many countries due to the low individual values of these trades. Nonetheless, these small exports are still subject to legal restrictions applied by the country of export.

External Debt
External debt is a part of the total debt that is owed to creditors outside the country.

Imports
An import is any good or service brought into one country from another country in a legitimate fashion, typically for use in trade. Import goods or services are provided to domestic consumers by foreign producers. An import in the receiving country is an export to the sending country. Import of goods normally requires involvement of the Customs authorities in both the country of import and the country of export and is often subject to import quotas, tariffs and trade agreements.

Terms of Trade
Terms of Trade (ToT) refers to the ratio of Price of exportable goods to the Price of importable goods. If a country terms of trade is more than 100%, it means that the country exports is more than it imports and that capital is coming in. If a country terms of trade (TOT) is less than 100%, then there is more capital going out the country needs to buy more products outside. The terms of trade ratio is heavily influenced by changes in the exchange rate because a rise in the value of a country domestic currency decreases prices for its imports but also makes exports less competitive.

Foreign Exchange Reserves
Foreign Exchange Reserves also known as Official Reserves and International Reserves are the foreign assets held or controlled by the central banks. The reserves themselves can either be gold or a specific currency like the dollar or the euro. They can also be special drawing rights and marketable securities denominated in foreign currencies like treasury bills, government bonds, corporate bonds and equities and foreign currency loans. The reserves are generally used to finance the balance of payments imbalances or to control exchange rates.

Business

Bankruptcies
Bankruptcy, also called liquidation or insolvency, is a legal status of an individual, company or corporation which cannot repay its debts to creditors or for various reasons cannot carry its operations. In principle, all assets of an organization or an individual are taken over by the court order in order to repay its obligations. The bankruptcy laws vary in different countries. For example, may only apply to individuals or only to companies or corporations. May be imposed by court order or be initiated by the debtor itself.

Business Confidence
The Business Confidence Index is an indicator designed to measure the degree of optimism on the state of the economy that business owners are expressing through their activities of investing and spending. Decreasing business confidence often implies slowing economic growth because business owners are likely to decrease their investment. The idea is that the more confident business owners and managers feel about the economy, their companies, their jobs and incomes, the more likely they are to make investments and purchases.

Capacity Utilisation
The capacity utilization rate, also called operating rate, shows the relationship between actual produced output and potential output that could be reached with available labor and equipment. The measure is shown in a percentage rate, where 100 percent indicates full capacity. For example, if an industry is working at a 65% capacity utilization rate, it means that without incurring the expensive costs of building a new plant or facility it has room to increase production by 35 percentage points.

Car Registrations
The number of new cars that have been registered with the state. Another way of measuring car sales. It is useful as it doesn't simply reflect the number of cars that are produced, but rather those that are bought and used by consumers and state officials.

Changes in Inventories
Changes in Inventories also known as changes in stocks are the difference in the physical volume or value of inventories held by companies and governments at certain period of time. For companies, those changes may refer to raw materials, finished goods and work in progress. For governments, they may refer to food, oil and stocks for market intervention.

Housing Index
The Housing Index refers to the residential construction activity taking place in a specific country in a certain period of time. The measure differs across countries and may refer to the building approvals or permits; construction permits, starts or orders; buildings or dwellings completed; new houses built or housing started. Can also show the house price index, property price index, construction cost index, average houses price or value of residential mortgages.

Industrial Production
The data given on this page shows a year over year change in a seasonally adjusted Industrial Production Index. Industrial Production Index is an economic indicator that measures changes in output for the manufacturing, mining, and utilities. Although these sectors contribute only a small portion of GDP, they are highly sensitive to interest rates and consumer demand. This makes Industrial Production an important tool for forecasting future GDP and economic performance. Industrial Production figures are also used by central banks to measure inflation, as high levels of industrial production can lead to uncontrolled levels of consumption and rapid inflation.

New Orders
New orders are a leading indicator for growth in gross domestic product because they are driven by business confidence and expectations.

Consumer

Bank Lending Rate
Bank lending rate, also called prime rate, refers to a reference interest rate used by banks to lend money to companies or individuals.

Consumer Confidence
Consumer confidence is an indicator designed to measure the degree of optimism that consumers feel about the overall state of the economy and their personal financial situation. How confident people are about stability of their incomes determines their spending activity and therefore serves as one of the key indicators for the overall shape of the economy. If consumer confidence is higher, consumers are making more purchases, boosting the economic expansion. On the other hand, if confidence is lower, consumers tend to save more than they spend, prompting the contraction of the economy.

Consumer Spending
Consumer spending, also called consumer consumption or expenditure, is the amount of money that households spend on goods and services in order to satisfy their needs. It is very important measure to check the health of the economy. For example, when the consumer spending is declining it means that the economy is not performing very well. In times of recession governments try to boost consumer spending artificially by expanding tax cuts and money handouts. As a result, households are spending more thus stimulating production and employment.

Disposable Personal Income
Disposable Income is the amount of money that households or persons have available to spend and save after paying income taxes and pension contributions to the government. The revenue may include employees’ compensation, property income, social benefits, money earned abroad and other incomes.

Personal Savings
Personal Savings (Households Savings) is most often referred as the ratio of household income saved to household net disposable income in certain period of time. It can also indicate the total value of savings deposits in the economy.

Retail Sales
The Retail Sales report is an aggregated measure of the sales of retail goods over a certain period. Usually, the Retail sales report is based on a data sampling that is extrapolated to model an entire country. Generally, the retail sales report not only captures store sales, catalogue sales and other out of store sales but also breaks down sales figures into groups like food and beverages, clothing, and autos. The Retail sales report is one of the timeliest economic reports, providing data that is only a few weeks old. The most popular measure of retail sales is month over month, where the volume of retail sales in certain month is compared to the previous month. However, some countries prefer the year over year measure where the certain month is compared to the same month a year ago thus accounting for seasonality and other oscillations in retail sales data.

Markets

Currency
An exchange rate is the current market price for which one currency can be exchanged for another. For instance, if the Euro exchange rate for the United States Dollar stands at 1.3, this means that 1 euro can be exchanged for 1.3 U.S. dollars. Because exchange rates play such an important role in a country's competiveness level, currency exchange rates are among the most analysed and forecasted indicators in the world. The exchange rate is determined by the level of supply and demand on the international markets. However, changes in foreign exchange market rates are often difficult to understand and to predict because the market is very large and volatile. In fact, the currency markets are the most liquid in the world with a daily turnover of close to $2 trillion, which compares to $500 billion for the US government bond market and $70 billion on the New York Stock Exchange.

Government Bond
A government bond is a security issued by a national government denominated in the country's own currency. The most common process of issuing bonds is through underwriting. In underwriting, one or more securities firms or banks, forming a syndicate, buy an entire issue of bonds from an issuer and re-sell them to investors. The security firm takes the risk of being unable to sell on the issue to end investors. However government bonds are instead typically auctioned. Bonds issued by national governments in foreign currencies are normally referred to as sovereign bonds. The first ever government bond was issued by the English government in 1693 to raise money to fund a war against France. In the past, Government bonds were usually referred to as risk-free bonds, because governments could easily devaluate their currencies or raise taxes to redeem the bond at maturity. However, the recent downgrade of the United States debt rating and the on-going sovereign debt crisis in the European Union has cast serious doubts into those risk-free assumptions. Moreover, unless governments issue inflation-indexed bonds, there is inflation risk, in that the principal repaid at maturity will have less purchasing power than anticipated if the inflation outturn is higher than expected.

Stock Market
A stock market or exchange is the center of a network of transactions where securities buyers meet sellers at a certain price. A stock market or exchange is not necessary a physical facility and with the advancement of information technology are increasingly rare those traders that exchange their stocks in the floor of a major stock exchange. The main stock market in the United States is New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In Europe, examples of stock exchanges include the London Stock Exchange, the Paris Bourse, and the Deutsche Bourse. In Asia, the main stock exchanges include the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the Bombay Stock Exchange. In Latin America, there are such exchanges as the BOVESPA in Brazil and the MERVAL in Argentina.

Commodity
Commodity futures are standardized contracts for the purchase and sale of physical commodities for future delivery on a regulated commodity futures exchange. The commodity futures contract price is determined by the equilibrium between supply and demand among competing buy and sell orders on the exchange at the time of the purchase or sale of the contract. Unlike options, a futures contract gives the holder the obligation to make or take delivery under the terms of the contract. An option grants the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to establish a position previously held by the seller of the option.

Money

Interest Rate
The interest rate shown on this page refers to the central bank benchmark interest rate. Usually, the central bank benchmark interest rate is the overnight rate at which central banks make loans to the commercial banks under their jurisdiction. Moving the benchmark interest rate, the central bank is able to make an impact on interest rates of commercial banks, inflation level of the country and national currency exchange rate. Reduction of interest rates should bring increase in business activity, a rise in inflation rate and weakening of national currency. In case of increase in interest rates the level of business activity is likely to drop, inflation declines and national currency strengthens.

Interbank Rate
The interbank rate is the rate of interest charged on short-term loans made between banks.

Loans to Private Sector
Loans to Private Sector, or Bank Lending to Private Sector, is the total value of financial resources provided by commercial banks to the private sector, including households and businesses.

Money Supply
Money Supply is the aggregate amount of monetary assets available in a country at a specific time. According to the Financial Times, Money Supply M0 and M1, also known as narrow money, includes coins and notes in circulation and other assets that are easily convertible into cash. Money Supply M2 includes M1 plus short-term time deposits in banks. Money Supply M3 includes M2 plus longer-term time deposits. Money Supply includes M3 plus other deposits. And the term broad money is used to describe Money Supply M2, M3 or M4.

Government

Government Budget
A government budget is a legal document that forecasts the government expenditures and revenues for a specific period of time. The period covered by a budget is usually a year, known as a financial or fiscal year, which may or may not correspond with the calendar year. A government budget is often passed by the legislature, and approved by the chief executive or president.

Government Debt To GDP
Government debt as a percent of GDP, also known as debt-to-GDP ratio, is the amount of national debt a country has in percentage of its Gross Domestic Product. Basically, Government debt is the money owed by the central government to its creditors. There are two types of government debt: net and gross. Gross debt is the accumulation of outstanding government debt which may be in the form of government bonds, credit default swaps, currency swaps, special drawing rights, loans, insurance and pensions. Net debt is the difference between gross debt and the financial assets that government holds. The higher the debt-to-GDP ratio, the less likely the country will pay its debt back, and more likely the country is to default on its debt obligations.

Government Spending
Government spending (also called government expenditure or consumption) is the amount of money that federal, state, and local governments spend on public services provided to its citizens. Government expenditure covers spending on goods and services like defence, judicial and education system. Yet, it excludes government transfers like social security and unemployment benefits.

GDP

GDP Annual Growth Rate
The annual growth rate in Gross Domestic Product measures the increase in value of the goods and services produced by an economy over the period of a year. Therefore, unlike the commonly used quarterly GDP growth rate the annual GDP growth rate takes into account a full year of economic activity, thus avoiding the need to make any type of seasonal adjustment.

GDP Growth Rate
The GDP Growth Rate shows a percentage change in the seasonally adjusted GDP value in the certain quarter, compared to the previous quarter. Because of climatic conditions and holidays, the intensity of the production varies throughout the year. This makes a direct comparison of two consecutive quarters difficult. In order to adjust for these conditions, many countries calculate the quarterly GDP using so called seasonally adjusted method. The Gross Domestic Product can be determined using three different approaches: the product, the income, and the expenditure technique, which should give the same result. In sum, the product technique sums the outputs of every class of enterprise. The expenditure technique works on the principle that every product must be bought by somebody, therefore the value of the total product must be equal to people's total expenditures in buying products and services. The income technique works on the principle that the incomes of the productive factors must be equal to the value of their product, and determines GDP by finding the sum of all producers' incomes.

GDP per capita
The GDP per capita given on this page shows the GDP at purchaser's prices in constant 2000 U.S. dollars divided by midyear population. GDP at purchaser's prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Dollar figures for GDP are converted from domestic currencies using 2000 official exchange rates. The term Constant Prices refers to a metric for valuing the price of something over time, without that metric changing due to inflation or deflation.

GDP per capita PPP
The GDP per capita PPP given on this page shows PPP GDP at purchaser's prices divided by midyear population. Purchasing Power Parity GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. Using a PPP basis is more useful when comparing generalized differences in living standards between nations because PPP takes into account the relative cost of living and the inflation rates of the countries, rather than using just exchange rates which may distort the real differences in income.

GDP Total Value
The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is one of the measures of national income and output. GDP can be defined in three ways, which should give identical results. First, it is equal to the total expenditures for all final goods and services produced within the country in a specified period of time (usually a 365-day year). Second, it is equal to the sum of the value added at every stage of production by all the industries, plus taxes and minus subsidies on products. Third, it is equal to the sum of the income generated by production like compensation of employees, taxes on production and imports less subsidies, and gross operating surplus.

Gross National Product
Gross National Product (GNP) measures the market value of all products and services produced during a certain period of time by labour and property supplied by the residents of a country. We can also say that Gross National Product is equivalent to the GDP when reduced by income earned within the domestic economy by overseas residents and expanded by income earned by residents from overseas investments.

Labour

Unemployment Rate
The unemployment rate can be defined as the number of people actively looking for a job divided by the labour force. Changes in unemployment depend mostly on inflows made up of non-employed people starting to look for jobs, of employed people who lose their jobs and look for new ones and of people who stop looking for employment.

Employed Persons
The Employed Persons report accounts for people legally allowed to work who perform a job during a certain time for a company, government, institution or any other entity.

Job Vacancies
Job vacancies refers to the number of positions that are currently open but not filled. It is an indicator of the tension in the labour market.

Labour Costs
Unit labour cost refers to the average cost of labour per unit of output. It is calculated by dividing the total labour costs by real output. The Average cost of labour is the sum of wages paid to employees, the cost of employee benefits and payroll taxes paid by an employer

Population
Population estimates are usually produced by a country´s statistical office or Census Bureau. The Population Census provides the most reliable picture of a country's population because the data is collected at a specified time from the entire population; in contrast to other surveys, in which information is collected from only a small part of the residents. When monthly population estimates are required, the population count is updated by adding births, subtracting deaths, and adding net international migration since the census date.

Productivity
Productivity is the real value of output produced by a unit of labor in a unit of time. It is used to measure efficiency of the economy. The indicator varies across different countries. In most cases refers to GDP produced per employed person. It can also measure output per worker, output per filled job and output per hour worked.

Unemployed Persons
The Unemployed persons report accounts only for individuals who are actively looking for a job but cannot find work.

Wages
Wages refers to the average salary earned by a country's citizens. As an economy improves, wages will rise. In a nutshell, it is another way of measuring the health of an economy.

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