Economic Indicators

- Economic Indicators

Economic indicators are statistics about economic activity. Economic indicators analyze economic performance and predict future performance. One of the applications of economic indicators is the study of business cycles. Economic indicators include various indexes, earnings reports, and economic summaries: such as the unemployment rate, exit rate (exit rate in American English), housing starts, consumer price index (a measure of inflation), inverted yield curve, consumption or leverage ratios, industrial production, bankruptcies, gross domestic product, broadband Internet penetration, retail sales, price indices and changes in credit conditions. 

The leading business cycle-dating committee in the United States is the private National Bureau of Economic Research. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the principal fact-finding agency of the United States Government in the fields of labor economics and statistics. Other producers of economic indicators include the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

- Phillips Curve

The Phillips curve shows the relationship between inflation and unemployment. In the short run, inflation and unemployment are inversely related; as one quantity increases, the other decreases. In the long run, there are no trade-offs. 

The Phillips curve links inflation to unemployment. The Phillips curve holds that unemployment and inflation are inversely related: as the level of unemployment falls, inflation increases. However, this relationship is not linear. Graphically, when unemployment is on the x-axis and inflation is on the y-axis, the short-run Phillips curve is L-shaped.

- Shrinkflation

In economics, shrinkflation, also known as grocery shrink ray, deflation, or shrinking packaging, is the process by which goods shrink in size or quantity, sometimes even reformulated or of lower quality, while prices remain the same or rise. The word is a portmanteau of the words deflation and inflation. Economist Pippa Malmgren was the first to use the term "shrinkflation" and its current meaning, although historian Brian Domitrovic had earlier used it The term used to refer to a situation where the economy is contracting while suffering from high inflation.  

Shrinkflation allows companies to improve operating margins and profitability by reducing costs while maintaining volumes, and is often used as an alternative to raising prices in line with inflation. Consumer protection groups have been critical of the practice