Forecasting the US Economy Paper
You will act as an economic forecaster for the United States economy. Accordingly, you will prepare a report including a forecast for the United States economy. The forecast will include what you expect the performance of the economy will be in the third and fourth quarters of 2018. As a forecaster, you will use ONLY the indicators from the data sets below.
Some of these indicators are released on a weekly or a monthly basis before the end of a quarter. Forecasters use these indicators to forecast the performance of the economy in that specific quarter.
You will only use the data for income, consumption and sales, investment and inventory, housing prices and sales, mortgage rates, prices and inflation, unemployment and benefits, labor wages, average hours, interest rates, exchange rates, stock prices, bond prices, oil prices, the trade balance, and others.
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The indicators that will be used include the industrial production and capacity utilization, consumer confidence, retail sales, auto sales, the index of purchasing managers, manufacturing and trade inventories, new home sales, existing home sales, building permits, housing starts, the house price index, construction spending, mortgage rates, the money stock, crude oil prices, the nonfarm payroll employment, the unemployment insurance claims, the Federal funds rate, the ten year treasury yield, the S&P 500 index, the Dow Jones index, the Nasdaq, the trade weighted exchange index, and other indicators. You will use these data to forecast the economic conditions in the United States in the third and fourth quarters of 2018.
In addition, you will explain the impact of the adopted monetary policy and fiscal policy on the economy. In your forecast, you will describe how the economy is expected to perform. Forecasting the US Economy Paper
This is based on the information available in 2017 and 2018, and your knowledge about policy decisions. You need to use your understanding of macroeconomic theory to explain and support your forecast.
The first section of the report will include a forecast of gross domestic product. This section will include a forecast of the components of national income including consumption spending, investment spending, government spending, and net exports.
The second section will include a forecast of inflation, core inflation, energy prices, and food prices.
The third section will include a forecast of unemployment and underemployment.
The fourth section will include a forecast of asset prices.
The fifth section will include a discussion on your prediction of the business cycle.
Another section will discuss the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy and their implications on the economy.
A final section will forecast the value of the currency.
The report will also include a conclusion.
The sufficient and appropriate use of data and indicators and the ability to link economic theory and intuition to the analysis is extremely important.
The analysis should be included in a maximum of 6 pages. Any bibliography or other material, such as tables and graphs, should be included afterwards. The font should be no less than 12, and the format is single spacing.
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INDICATORS
Income
Consumption
- Real Personal Consumption Expenditure
- Retail Trade– FRED
- Consumer Sentiment– FRED
- Conference Board Consumer Confidence
Investment
- Index of Purchasing Managers
- Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales
- Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders
- Total Business Inventories to Sales
Housing
- S&P Case Shiller Home Price Index
- House Price Index
- New Home Sales– FRED
- Existing Home Sales– FRED
- Construction Spending– FRED
- Building Permits– FRED
- Housing Starts– FRED
- Mortgage Rates– FRED
- Real Estate Foreclosures
- Mortgage Debt Outstanding
- Pending Home Sales Index
- Housing Affordability Index– FRED
Inflation
- Consumer Price Index– FRED
- Inflation
- Inflation Expectation
- PCE Price Index– FRED
- Money Stock– FRED
- Crude Oil Price– FRED
Unemployment
- Civilian Unemployment Rate – FRED
- Nonfarm Payroll Employment– FRED
- Unemployment Insurance Claims – FRED
- Labor Underutilization
- Help Wanted– FRED
- Monster Employment Index
- Hours Worked
- Average Hourly Earnings
- Employment Cost Index
- Compensation and Output per Hour Worked
Assets
- Federal Funds Rate – FRED
- Ten-Year Treasury Yield
- S&P 500 – FRED
- Dow Jones Industrial Average– FRED
- Nasdaq Composite index– FRED
- Fear and Greed Index
- VIX Volatility index