The Economist. Guide to Economic Indicators: Making Sense of Economics

Bloomberg Press – 2007, 257 p., 6th edition
ISBN: 1576602400, 1861979749, 9781576602409, 9781861979746A guide that assists in determining where we were in the business cycle. The book is structured like an encyclopedia - analyzing each indicator in detail and in isolation.
A fine addition to anyone's economic reference books, but disappointed me by failing to treat the economy as an organic whole.List of charts
Interpreting economic indicators
Essential mechanics
Measuring economic activity
Omissions
Output, expenditure and income
Prices
Putting it in context
Reliability
Growth: trends and cycles
Nominal GDP
GDP per head
Real GDP
GDP: output
GDP: expenditure
Productivity
Cyclical or leading indicators
Population, employment and unemployment
Population
Labour or workforce
Employment
Unemployment and vacancies
Fiscal indicators
Public expenditure
Government revenues
Budget balance, deficit, surplus
National debt; government or public debt
Consumers
Personal income, disposable income
Consumer and personal expenditure, private consumption
Personal and household savings; savings ratio
Consumer confidence
Investment and savings
Fixed investment and GDFCF
Investment intentions
Stocks (inventories)
National savings, savings ratio
Industry and commerce
Business conditions; indices and surveys
Industrial and manufacturing production
Capacity use and utilisation
Manufacturing orders
Motor vehicles
Construction orders and output
Housing starts, completions and sales
Wholesale sales or turnover, orders and stocks
Retail sales or turnover, orders and stocks
The balance of payments
Accounting conventions
Imports of goods and services
Exports of goods and services
Trade balance, merchandise trade balance
Current-account balance
Capital- and financial-account flows
International investment position (IIP)
Official reserves
External debt, net foreign assets
Exchange rates
Nominal exchange rates
Special drawing rights (SDRs)
EMU, ecu, ERM and euro
Effective exchange rates
Real exchange rates; competitiveness
Terms of trade
Money and financial markets
Money supply, money stock, M0 . M5, liquidity
Bank lending, advances, credit, consumer credit
Central bank policy rates
Interest rates; short-term and money-market rates
Bond yields
Yield curves, gaps and ratios
Real interest rates and yields
Share prices and yields
Prices and wages
Price indicators
Gold price
Oil prices
Commodity price indices
Export and import prices; unit values
Producer and wholesale prices
Surveys of price expectations
Wages, earnings and labour costs
Unit labour costs
Consumer or retail prices
Consumer or private expenditure deflators
GDP deflators
Appendix: Useful websiteswith TOC BookMarkLinkswithout "Copy/Paste" restrictions