Regional Economic Data

Business-Cycle Indexes

The Dallas Fed business-cycle indexes are published
monthly a couple days after the state and metro employment
and unemployment data become publicly available from
the Texas Workforce Commission.

Texas Business-Cycle Index

An economic statistic that helps gauge the current state of the Texas economy. The index is constructed using payroll employment, gross state product and the unemployment rate.

Metro Business-Cycle Indexes

The Dallas Fed’s Metro Business-Cycle Indexes, produced for the five largest Texas metropolitan areas and the four largest metropolitan areas along the Texas-Mexico border, reflect broad movements in local economic conditions. The indexes are constructed based on the aggregated movements in the local area unemployment rate, nonagricultural employment, inflation-adjusted wages, and inflation-adjusted retail sales. The weights of the components are statistically optimized for each metropolitan area in order to best capture the underlying cyclical movements in the local area economy. The long-term trend growth of the indexes through 2000 is calculated using growth in annual real metro personal income. Beginning in 2001, long-term trend growth is calculated using real metro GDP.