New Coincident and Leading Indicators for the Lebanese Economy

Matta, Samer

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURAL SECTORS;    AGRICULTURE;    ARIMA;    BALANCE OF PAYMENTS;    BASE YEAR;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6950
RP-ID  :  WPS6950

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Weak economic statistics in Lebanonimpede economic analysis and decision making. This paperpresents a new coincident indicator and a leading indicatorfor the Lebanese economy. A new methodology, based on theNational Bureau of Economic Research-Conference Boardapproach, was used to construct these indicators. Theindicators can be used as monthly proxies for the evolutionof real gross domestic product with a relatively small timelag (four to five months). Notwithstanding the relativelysmall sample period, the results reveal promisingstatistical properties that should make these newindications valuable coincident and leading (one-year ahead)indicators for analyzing the dynamics of the Lebaneseeconomy. However, given limitations on the length of thegross domestic product time series in Lebanon, the accuracyof these indicators in tracking the business cycle of theLebanese economy is expected to improve over time as moredata points become available.