Economic Indicators
Economic Indicators
Economic indicators are various layers of statistics that provide insight and information into how an economy is functioning. An economist might use economic indicators to paint a picture of current economic performance, or make future economic predictions. As a team, we will profile six economic indicators: Consumer Price Index, Capacity Utilization, Unemployment Rate, Producer Price Index, Interest Rate, and Inflation Rate. Historic charts for each indicator are included in our Power Point Presentation. As we move forward, we will use this information to help us better understand our selected business, the airline industry.
Consumer Price Index (CPI)
The Consumer Price Index is published by the Federal Department of Labor for the purpose of measuring the cost of living in the United States. The index measures the general level of prices in a fixed basket of goods that are typically purchased by consumers. It translates the price of goods such as food, beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, and entertainment from what they were in prior years to what the same goods or services would cost today. The Consumer Price Index allows anyone looking at it to determine how much money they need to spend today in order to live in the same lifestyle they lived in previous years. The yearly change in percentage in the value of the index is one way of measuring the annual inflation rate. When the C ...