Note on the revision and significance of the composite lagging business cycle indicator

The identification of new economic indicators, the discontinuation of existing indicators, as well as changes in the size and structure of the economy, necessitate revisions to the composite business cycle indicators from time to time. In March 2004 the South African Reserve Bank revised its composite leading and coincident business cycle indicators (Venter and Pretorius, 2004). As indicated at the time, the composite lagging business cycle indicator was revised separately and the results are published in this note. The composite lagging business cycle indicator was last revised in 1994 (Van der Walt and Pretorius, 1994).