What is an Economic Indicator?

Definition of Economic Indicator: Generally, a government agency issues an economic indicator. It is defined as a statistical data that tries to measure or define the existing stability and economic growth. Most of the economists use the following indicators to charge trends and to set policy trends for the government so that it can consider the trends prior to implementing them. The economic indicators are generally available in three different types known as leading, coincident and lagging. Leading is the one having a predictive value related with the future prospects. Coincident is the one that occur at the similar time as an economic activity. Lagging is the one that becomes obvious after a certain activity shapes the trends in the market. These indicators are also known as business indicators which permit analysis of an economic performance, future directions and support forecasts. Some of the examples of economic indicator are housing starts, unemployment, industrial production, prices of the stock market and changes in the money supply.