Select Greater Philadelphia (Select) has retained world-leading forecasting firm, Global Insight, to launch the Greater Philadelphia Global Insight Leading Index (GPGILI).

Greater Philadelphia Global Insight Leading Index (GPGILI):

• Contains the latest numbers indicating that the Greater Philadelphia economy is expected to experience a slower rate of decline than the U.S. economy.
• Provides important signals about the direction of future economic conditions in the Greater Philadelphia region.
• Was launched as part of a growing need to understand how global events impact the economy of Greater Philadelphia, particularly given the turbulent economic climate.
• Was created to gauge the current level of economic activity in the region.

Leading Index
The GPGILI was designed to signal a change in the direction of economic activity in the Greater Philadelphia region with an approximate lead time of six months.

A leading indicator is an economic variable that changes before the level of activity in the larger economy changes. Several leading indicators are combined to produce a leading index.

At the U.S. level, leading indicators of future economic activity include among others: interest rate spreads, consumer expectations, manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods, building permits, initial claims for unemployment insurance, average weekly hours worked in manufacturing, and changes in inventory.

Download Current Values of Economic Variables in the Greater Philadelphia Region

Coincident Index
Global Insight was also retained to construct a Coincident Index for the region that shows the current direction of economic activity.

A coincident indicator is a measure of economic activity whose changes track closely with current changes in the overall economy. In other words, coincident indicators vary directly with movements in the business cycle.

For the U.S. economy, economic variables that serve as coincident indicators include, among others: employment in non-basic sectors such as trade, personal income excluding transfer payments, total employment, tax collections, passenger trips, retail sales, and even hotel occupancy rates.

As part of the effort to create the leading and coincident indices, Select compiled time series data for a number of economic variables. While most of them were not used in constructing the two indices for statistical reasons, they provide a diverse snapshot of the current performance of different aspects of the region’s economy.