PDS To Focus on Using Statistics to Understand Business Cycles

Responding to requests from members, NABE has designed its 2007 Professional Development Seminar as a short, cost-effective program to explain economic statistics in the context of the broader economy.  For the first time, the PDS will be held on the West Coast, reflecting NABE’s geographically widespread membership.

Mark your calendar for the fourth annual PDS set for April 22-24 in San Diego.  The title of the 2007 seminar is:  “Using Economic Statistics to Understand Business Cycles.”   The preliminary schedule is posted at:  www.nabe.com/stats2007, where you can check for the latest information as the seminar date draws near.

The seminar will be held at the San Diego Marriott La Jolla, located at 4240 La Jolla Village Drive, near the University of California at San Diego and 25 minutes from downtown San Diego. 

In keeping with the seminar’s popular format, the 2007 PDS will match economists and analysts from data-producing agencies to their subject areas, thus giving participants a close look at how data series are produced and how they can best be used to track economic trends.  Drawing upon comments offered by prior PDS attendees, the NABE committee has emphasized “the best of earlier programs: the informal, collegial setting with data experts spending extended time with students, and the focus on interchange between students and data producers and expert data users during each session.”

First Session Poses Key Question to NBER

The first session of the seminar will provide an overview of the business cycle dating process of the National Bureau for Economic Research, the organization that traditionally has been the arbiter of U.S. business cycles.   Among the key questions for NBER:  Why two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product do not constitute a recession?

Other sessions on the first full day will include:  understanding the gross domestic product accounts and case studies on how GDP data are used, personal income, payroll employment, corporate profits, and the producer price index.   On the second day, sessions will address: manufacturers’ and retail sales volume, how to build you own cycle indicator, housing statistics, and regional data.

Optional skills sessions, offered the afternoon of April 22, will include: Maurine Haver, chair of NABE’s Statistics Committee and Haver Analytics, on federal agency and industry economic statistics; Duncan Meldrum, Air Products, on price index construction and issues; and Tom Davis, Motorola, on business cycle measurement.

Other confirmed speakers include: Greg Miller, Sun Trust; Michael Chriszt, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Shelly Smith, Bureau of Economic Analysis; Robert Fry, Dupont; Joe Cardinale, Air Products; Andrew Hodge, Bureau of Economic Analysis; John Silvia, Wachovia Bank; Evelina Tainer, Washington State Employment Security Department; Kurt Karl, Swiss Re; and Peter Jaquette, Weyerhauser.

Register for the seminar by March 15 and save $50.  See more details and the registration form at http://www.nabe.com/stats2007/

San Diego