Tracking Weekly State-Level Economic Conditions / Christiane Baumeister, Danilo Leiva-León, Eric R. Sims.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baumeister, Christiane.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Leiva-León, Danilo.

Sims, Eric R.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29003.

NBER working paper series no. w29003

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

In this paper, we develop a novel dataset of weekly economic conditions indices for the 50 U.S. states going back to 1987 based on mixed-frequency dynamic factor models with weekly, monthly, and quarterly variables that cover multiple dimensions of state economies. We show that there is considerable heterogeneity in the length, depth, and timing of business cycles across individual states. We assess the role of states in national recessions and propose an aggregate indicator that allows us to gauge the overall weakness of the U.S. economy. We also illustrate the usefulness of these state-level indices for quantifying the main forces contributing to the economic collapse caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and for evaluating the effectiveness of federal economic policies like the Paycheck Protection Program.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2021.