PIBya, un indicador adelantado del PIB de España

One of the main concerns in the fields of macroeconomics and economic policy is to know the current phase of the business cycle the economy and how it will evolve. In this way it is possible to program countercyclical policy measures when they are needed. To achieve this goal leading indicators are used. They have monthly or quarterly frequency and they show a high degree of correlation with GDP not only in a contemporary way but also with the production in the near future. This working paper presents PIBya (GDPnow), an indicator updated on a recurring basis every few days at www.pibya.es and it includes the latest results of ten variables offered by the Spanish statistics national institute on a monthly basis. The objective of this indicator is to calculate in a simple and easily replicable way a qualitative result that visually anticipates the phase of the business cycle. To facilitate the replicability of the indicator, the number of variables included is low and the treatment of the time series is moderate; since the objective is not to achieve the best result in terms of retro-prediction, but to achieve an adequate indicator that can be understood by the non-specialized public and it improves the decision making process.