Journal Article

Evaluating the Eleventh District's Beige Book

Abstract: In this study, Nathan Balke and Mine Yucel ask whether the Eleventh Federal Reserve District's Beige Book description contains timely information about economic activity within the District. They examine whether the Beige Book description tracks current Texas real gross state product (GSP) growth and current Texas employment growth. They also study whether the Beige Book has information about growth not present in other regional indicators that would have been available to analysts at the time of the Beige Book's release. They find that both the Beige Book summary and the average across sectors reflect Texas GSP and employment growth very well. These two measures of the Beige Book also have predictive content for one quarter ahead GSP growth. Balke and Yucel also find that the Eleventh District's Beige Book has information content for Texas economic activity over and above other state economic indicators such as Texas employment growth, personal income, or sectoral employment growth. Because the Beige Book is released at least one month earlier than employment data and at least two years before GSP data, its timeliness makes it a good tool for current regional economic analysis.

Keywords: Unemployment; Employment (Economic theory); Economic indicators;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Part of Series: Economic and Financial Policy Review

Publication Date: 2000

Issue: Q IV

Pages: 2-10