PDS: Using Economic Statistics to Understand Business Cycles

Ready for its West Coast debut, NABE’s 2007 Professional Development Seminar will feature its popular mix of economists from federal data-producing agencies and private analysts who use those statistics in what is designed as a cost-effective two-day program.

The new wrinkle this year is the seminar’s adoption of a theme:  “Using Economic Statistics to Understand Business Cycles.”    Now in its fourth year, the PDS will be held April 22-24 in San Diego at the Marriott La Jolla near the University of California at San Diego, about 25 minutes from downtown.

Duncan Meldrum, former NABE president and founder of the PDS, explained that this year’s seminar will retain its distinctive combination of two complimentary perspectives on key economic statistics – those of data producers and data users.  The idea of having a theme grew out of conversations with economists, he said.

“The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) uses data from all the major agencies to determine the U.S. business cycle, so we felt that would give us a nice framework for analysis,” Meldrum said.  The focus on using data to gauge the business cycle will add “a valuable dimension with our overall objective to teach attendees about the data as well as give them an idea how to use it to analyze cyclical patterns in the economy,” he added.

PDS attendees will have the option of starting on Sunday, April 22 with a skills sessions presented by Maurine Haver, president of Haver Analytics and chair of NABE’s Statistics Committee.  Next Meldrum, chief economist of Air Products, will present a session on price index number construction and related issues, followed by Tom Davis, chief economist, Motorola, talking about basic cycle measurement concepts and applications.

At the start of the first full day, April 23, attendees will hear an overview of the NBER’s business cycle dating process from Dick Berner, chief U.S. economist, Morgan Stanley.  Other sessions will then turn to specific data programs and how they are used to track business cycles.  These data series include:  the gross domestic product, personal income, housing data, employment statistics, flow of funds statistics, industrial production, producer price index, and corporate profits.  In the final session, Kurt Karl, head of economic research for North America at Swiss Re, will discuss how to build your own cycle indicator.

Find the preliminary schedule for the San Diego PDS at: http://nabe.com/stats2007/program.html.  Register online at: https://secure.icglink.com/nabe/stat07reg.html