Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/241113 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Staff Report No. 920
Publisher: 
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY
Abstract: 
This paper describes a weekly economic index (WEI) developed to track the rapid economic developments associated with the onset of and policy response to the novel coronavirus in the United States. The WEI is a weekly composite index of real economic activity, with eight of ten series available the Thursday after the end of the reference week. In addition to being a weekly real activity index, the WEI has strong predictive power for output measures and provided an accurate nowcast of current-quarter GDP growth in the first half of 2020. We document how the WEI responded to key events and data releases during the first six months of the pandemic.
Subjects: 
weekly economic index
high frequency
measurement of economic activity
forecasting
JEL: 
C51
E01
E66
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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