Memorize Economic Indicators: Leading, Lagging and Coincident in 40 Flashcards
Learn economic indicators with 40 flashcards: leading vs lagging vs coincident, the LEI's 10 components, yield curve inversion, CPI, PMI and how to study them.
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GDP tells you where the economy was. The economic indicators in deck WQ0373 – Economic Indicators (40 cards) are about the harder question: where is it going next? The deck is built around one idea — timing — and once you organise every indicator by when it moves, the 40 cards collapse into a few lists you can recite.
Study this deck: Economic Indicators
1 / 10Economic indicator
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
The core cards
| Front | Back (from the deck) |
|---|---|
| Leading indicators | Change before the economy as a whole, useful as short-term predictors |
| Lagging indicators | Change after the economy, typically with a lag of a few quarters |
| Leading Economic Index (LEI) | Conference Board composite of ten indicators predicting U.S. activity six to nine months ahead |
| Why are average weekly hours a leading indicator? | Hours of existing staff are adjusted before new hires or layoffs |
| Inverted yield curve | Longer-term returns below short rates; historically one of the most accurate recession predictors |
| Why is the unemployment rate a lagging indicator? | Employment picks up two or three quarters after an upturn |
| Countercyclical indicator | Moves opposite to the economy, e.g. unemployment rises in a downturn |
| NBER | The private committee that dates U.S. recessions |
Also covered: coincident indicators, procyclical and acyclical indicators, initial jobless claims, manufacturers' new orders, vendor performance, stock prices, the 10-year Treasury vs. Fed Funds spread, building permits, Index of Consumer Expectations, Leading Credit Index, the seven lagging components (unemployment duration, commercial loans, CPI for services, unit labor cost, inventory-to-sales ratio, consumer credit-to-income, prime rate), the four coincident components (payrolls, personal income less transfers, industrial production, manufacturing and trade sales), CPI, PPI, core inflation, wage share, quit rate, capacity utilization, PMI, housing starts, retail sales, consumer leverage ratio, consumer confidence, BLS.
Study it as three lists, not 40 facts
The deck scatters the Conference Board indexes across the pile. Pull them together into three "list cards" — LEI: 10, coincident: 4, lagging: 7 — and make yourself recite each one before reviewing the individual "Why is X a leading indicator?" cards. The why cards stick far better once you know which list they belong to.
Then tag every remaining card with two labels: timing (leading / coincident / lagging) and direction (pro-, counter- or acyclical). Several cards never say: CPI, capacity utilization, quit rate, PMI and consumer confidence have no timing label in the deck. Write one on the hint side yourself — deciding is the quit rate leading or coincident? is exactly the reasoning exam questions test.
Three cards to repair
- Vendor performance (card 9) is described as an LEI component. The Conference Board replaced it with the ISM New Orders Index in its 2012 revision, which is also when the Leading Credit Index (card 26) joined the LEI. Link the two cards.
- Cards 11 and 21 both teach the inverted yield curve — keep the one that names the 10-year vs. Fed Funds spread.
- BLS and NBER (34–35) are institutions, not indicators. Keep them, but review them as "who publishes / who dates recessions" cards.
Where it fits
This deck pairs naturally with the bigger macro picture — GDP, inflation and policy tools — in our guide on how to learn macroeconomics with 90 cards. Learn the indicators here, then see how central banks react to them there.
Find WQ0373 – Economic Indicators in the library on Flip It and start with the three list cards.
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