With the disappointing initial GDP releases for Q42012 from Europe out, the “world” as defined by 41 OECD countries across the globe, has plunged into recession. We define “recession” through two alternative definitions for our comparison, either the presence of a single negative quarter-on-quarter growth or the more traditional two consecutive negative quarterly growths. Whichever way you look at it, the number of countries in expansion plunged dramatically between 3Q2012 and 4Q2012 as shown below: Now this is a diffusion index, with each country receiving equal […]

Personal Incomes, less Transfer Payments and deflated by Personal Consumption Expenditures, is used as one of the four co-incident components of the NBER Recession Model. There was a huge jump in this indicator for the months of  November and December 2012  quite possibly as a result of incomes being pulled forward as a result of the Fiscal Cliff taxes uncertainty. According to the BEA, “Personal income in November and December was boosted by accelerated and special dividend payments to persons and by […]