Select Greater Philadelphia (Select) in partnership with IHS Global Insight, the world-leading forecasting firm, releases on a quarterly basis the Greater Philadelphia Leading Index (GPLI) of economic activity and the Greater Philadelphia Coincident Index (GPCI) of economic activity.

Leading Index
A leading indicator is an economic variable that changes before the level of activity in the larger economy changes. 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. At both the US and regional levels, individual economic variables that function as leading indicators are combined to produce a leading index.

The GPLI is designed to signal the strength and direction of economic activity in the Greater Philadelphia region with an approximate lead time of six months.

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 an economic variable whose movements coincide with current changes in the overall economy. In other words, economic variables that act as 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 manufacturing and trade, personal income excluding transfer payments, total employment, tax collections, passenger trips, retail sales, and even hotel occupancy rates. At both the US and regional levels, individual economic variables that function as coincident indicators are combined to produce a coincident index.

The GPCI is designed to show the current direction of economic activity in the GPR.

As part of creating the GPLI and the GPCI, Select and IHS Global Insight assembled time series data for a large number of individual economic variables that could potentially function as coincident and leading indicator 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.

Please download Current Values of Economic Variables in the Greater Philadelphia Region for a table presenting the current values for these variables.