Financial Conditions Indexes: A Fresh Look After The Financial Crisis

Financial Conditions Indexes: A Fresh Look after the Financial Crisis*
Jan Hatzius, Peter Hooper, Frederic Mishkin, Kermit L. Schoenholtz and Mark W. Watson
This Draft: February 22, 2010
Abstract
This report explores the link between financial conditions and economic activity. We first
review existing measures, including both single indicators and composite financial conditions
indexes (FCIs). We then build a new FCI that features three key innovations. First, besides
interest rates and asset prices, it includes a broad range of quantitative and survey-based
indicators. Second, our use of unbalanced panel estimation techniques results in a longer time
series (back to 1970) than available for other indexes. Third, we control for past GDP growth
and inflation and thus focus on the predictive power of financial conditions for future economic
activity. During most of the past two decades for which comparisons are possible, including the
last five years, our FCI shows a tighter link with future economic activity than existing indexes,
although some of this undoubtedly reflects the fact that we selected the variables partly based on
our observation of the recent financial crisis. As of the end of 2009, our FCI showed financial
conditions at somewhat worse-than-normal levels. The main reason is that quantitative credit
measures (e.g. asset-backed securities issuance) remain very weak, especially once we control
for past economic growth. Thus, our analysis is consistent with an ongoing modest drag from
financial conditions on economic growth in 2010.
* Affiliations are Hatzius (Goldman Sachs), Hooper (Deutsche Bank), Mishkin (Graduate School
of Business, Columbia University, and National Bureau of Economic Research), Schoenholtz
(Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University), and Watson (Department of
Economics and Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and National Bureau of
Economic Research). We thank Christine Dobridge, David Kelley, and Torsten Slok for help
with the analysis; Anil Kashyap, Serena Ng, Hyun Shin, and Kenneth West for valuable
comments and advice; and Bloomberg, Citi, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Simon
Gilchrist, Macroeconomic Advisers, and the OECD for generously sharing their credit spread
and financial conditions data. The views expressed here are those of the authors only and not
necessarily of the institutions with which they are affiliated. All errors are our own.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Starting in August of 2007, the U.S. economy was hit by the most serious financial disruption
since the Great Depression period of the early 1930s. The subsequent financial crisis, which
receded during the course of 2009, was followed by the most severe recession in the post World
War II period, with unemployment rising by over five and half percentage points from its lows,
and peaking at over ten percent.
This shock to the U.S. (and the world) economy has brought to the fore the importance of
financial conditions to macroeconomic outcomes. In this paper we examine why financial
condition indexes might prove to be a useful tool for both forecasters and policymakers, analyze
how they are constructed, and provide new econometric research to see how useful a tool they
can be.
2. THE WHYS AND HOWS OF FINANCIAL CONDITIONS INDEXES
To understand the usefulness of financial condition indexes, we will start by discussing why
financial conditions matter, and then will turn to how they have been constructed in practice.
2.1 Why Financial Conditions Matter
Financial conditions can be defined as the current state of financial variables that influence
economic behavior and (thereby) the future state of the economy. In theory, such financial
variables may include anything that characterizes the supply or demand of financial instruments
relevant for economic activity. This list might comprise a wide array of asset prices and
quantities (both stocks and flows), as well as indicators of potential asset supply and demand.
The latter may range from surveys of credit availability to the capital adequacy of financial
intermediaries.
A financial conditions index (FCI) summarizes the information about the future state of the
economy contained in these current financial variables. Ideally, an FCI should measure financial
shocks – exogenous shifts in financial conditions that influence or otherwise predict future
economic activity. True financial shocks should be distinguished from the endogenous reflection
or embodiment in financial variables of past economic activity that itself predicts future activity.
If the only information contained in financial variables about future economic activity were of
this endogenous variety, there would be no reason to construct an FCI: Past economic activity
itself would contain all the relevant predictive information.1
Of course, a single measure of financial conditions may be insufficient to summarize all the
predictive content. To simplify the exposition, we assume in this section that a single FCI is an

1
For this reason, an assessment of the marginal predictive value of an FCI should purge the FCI of its endogenous
predictive content. We will see later in the empirical section of this paper that existing FCIs include some mix of
exogenous financial shocks and endogenous predictive components. In constructing a new FCI, we use standard
econometric procedures to remove the endogenous component in order to isolate and study the impact of exogenous
financial shocks.
2

adequate summary statistic. Later, in the empirical section of the paper, we relax and examine
that assumption.
The vast literature on the monetary transmission mechanism is a natural starting place for
understanding FCIs. In that literature, monetary policy influences the economy by altering the
financial conditions that affect economic behavior. The structure of the financial system is a key
determinant of the importance of various channels of transmission. For example, the large
corporate bond market in the United States and its broadening over time suggest that market
prices for credit are more powerful influences on U.S. economic activity than would be the case
in Japan or Germany today, or in the United States decades ago. The state of the economy also
matters: For example, financial conditions that influence investment may be less important in
periods of large excess capacity.
The recent analysis of the monetary transmission mechanism by Boivin et al. (2009) classifies
these channels as neoclassical and non-neoclassical.2 The first category is comprised of
traditional investment-, consumption- and trade-based channels of transmission. The investment
channel contains both the impact of long-term interest rates on the user cost of capital and the
impact of asset prices on the demand for new physical capital (Tobin’s q). The consumption
channel contains both wealth and intertemporal substitution effects. Both the investment- and
consumption-based channels may be affected by changes in risk perceptions and risk tolerance
that alter market risk premia. Finally, the trade channel captures the impact of the real exchange
rate on net exports.
The second category – or non-neoclassical set – of transmission channels includes virtually

everything else. Prominent among this category are imperfections in credit supply arising from
government intervention, from institutional constraints on intermediaries and from balance sheet
constraints of borrowers.
These credit-related channels work in complex ways that depend on prevailing institutional and
market practices. For example, factors that aggravate or mitigate information asymmetries
between lenders and borrowers – such as an increase in aggregate uncertainty – can alter credit
supply. In addition, the behavior of intermediaries is subject to threshold effects – like runs – that
are sudden and highly nonlinear and may radically alter the link between the policy tool and
economic prospects. Consequently, factors that affect the vulnerability of financial arrangements
– such as changing uncertainty about the risk exposures of leveraged intermediaries – also may
play an important role in assessing financial conditions.
Naturally, the importance of these different transmission categories may change over time. For
example, a “credit view” – which emphasizes some of the non-neoclassical factors – might
highlight the impact of the depletion of bank capital and the decline in borrower net worth in
explaining the weak response of the U.S. economy to low policy rates in the early 1990s. A

2
An alternative classification might distinguish between financial shocks that are directly related to monetary policy
and those that are due to other factors. In this taxonomy, an FCI could be designed to measure the impact of
financial variables on real activity over and above the direct effects of monetary policy via a risk-free yield curve.
We employ this approach in Section 5.2 below, where we show that most of the predictive power of financial
conditions for real activity reflects influences other than the evolution of monetary policy.
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neoclassical assessment of the 1998-2002 period might highlight the role of stock prices in
driving investment and, to a lesser extent, consumption.
Note that both categories of transmission channels allow for a loose link (or even for the loss of a
link) between the setting of the policy tool – typically, the rate on interbank lending – and the
behavior of the economy. The financial conditions that matter for future economic activity are
subject to shocks from sources other than policy, in addition to policy influences. In the two
examples in the previous paragraph, these shocks would include changes in the net worth of
lenders and borrowers, or in the relationship between asset prices and economic fundamentals.
The impact of the policy tool on financial conditions also need not be stable (let alone linear)
over time. This consideration would seem particularly important when policy tools are used
beyond the usual range of variation. Indeed, at the zero interest rate bound for monetary policy,
the conventional policy tool itself is no longer available.
Naturally, policymakers would like to know how less conventional policy tools affect financial
conditions and the economy. Following the financial crisis of 2007-09, three unconventional
policy approaches are of particular importance: (1) a commitment to keep policy rates low
(hereafter, a policy duration commitment); (2) quantitative easing (QE; the supply of reserves in
excess of the level needed to keep the policy rate at its target); and (3) credit easing (CE; changes
in a central bank’s asset mix aimed at altering the relative prices of the assets available to the
private sector).3
To understand the impact of such unconventional tools, it is again necessary to focus on the
specific channels by which these tools affect financial conditions. In theory, a full and complete
understanding of the channels of monetary transmission could allow us to anticipate the
economic impact of unconventional policy shifts. We could try to address questions such as “At
the zero bound, what scale of QE or CE is expected to be equivalent in terms of future economic
stimulus to a step-reduction of the conventional policy rate?” Or, “how long a policy duration
commitment is needed to achieve the same effect?” Or, how much does it matter if the
commitment is conditional (say, on the evolution of inflation prospects) or unconditional (that is,
fixed in time)? How different is the economic stimulus if the central bank purchases $1 trillion or
$2 trillion of mortgage-backed securities?
In practice, of course, our understanding of monetary policy transmission is far less evolved.
First, in economies with sophisticated financial systems, the transmission channels are diverse
and change over time. Some channels occasionally may be blocked (for example, when
intermediaries are impaired or key markets fail to function), thereby altering the impact of policy
changes. Second, across economies with different financial systems, the variance in the
importance of specific transmission channels can be large. Third, our experience with

3
Unlike the Bank of Japan in the late 1990s and earlier in this decade, the Federal Reserve did not target any
specific level of reserves as a part of its unconventional policy apparatus. The Fed’s policy focus was on credit
policies that influence relative asset prices (yields), suggesting that the changing size of the balance sheet was
principally a by-product of credit interventions. Nevertheless, for analytic purposes, it is useful to distinguish
changes in the size of the central bank balance sheet (QE) from changes in the mix of the central bank balance sheet
(CE).
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unconventional policies is exceptionally brief and limited. At this stage, no central bank that
undertook QE or CE in 2008-09 has exited from that policy stance. And, until this episode, no
major central bank (aside from the Bank of Japan) had used such policies since the Great
Depression.
So how does the policy transmission framework help us understand and appreciate the potential
utility of an FCI? To simplify, imagine that the link between a particular FCI and the future
growth rate of the economy is one-for-one. In this stylized world – depicted in the schematic in
Figure 2.1 – a one-unit rise (decline) in the FCI leads to a one-percentage-point increase
(decrease) in the pace of economic activity. Then, since policy is transmitted to the economy
solely via financial conditions, the FCI would indicate whether a change in policy will alter
economic prospects. It would summarize all the information about financial conditions – arising
from both policy and from non-policy influences – that is relevant for the economic outlook. If
policymakers changed their policy tool – conventional or unconventional – with a goal of
altering economic behavior, the FCI would inform them if they will succeed.
Of course, nothing about monetary policy or its assessment is so simple. First, the link between
financial conditions and economic activity evolves over time. Changing mechanisms of finance
mean that the indicators needed to capture the financial state also change. As an example,
consider how the rising share of ARMs over recent decades alters the impact of short-term
interest rates on the cost of home mortgages and on housing activity. Or, consider how the
expansion of highly leveraged shadow banks in the decades after 1980 altered the link between
the level of interest rates and the supply of credit.
Second, the importance of factors other than monetary policy on financial conditions varies over
time. Bouts of euphoria and pessimism can prompt asset bubbles and crashes even in periods
where monetary policy tools are set close to long-run norms. Long periods of stability can erode
risk awareness (consider the impact of steadily rising house prices over the period from the
Second World War to 2006). And, pro-cyclical aspects of regulation, accounting and institutional
risk management can amplify the cyclicality of credit supply and the swings in market risk
premia that affect economic prospects. In recent years, the impact of such non-monetary
influences on financial conditions seems unusually high.
Third, the response of financial conditions to policy changes – even aside from non-policy
shocks – may change. Imagine, for example, that a central bank chooses to lower interest rates in
response to an oil price shock. How will long-term interest rates and equity prices change?
Presumably, a central bank that gains anti-inflation credibility over time will experience a
changing response to its policy actions.
Fourth, forces other than financial conditions also affect the performance of the real economy.
Examples include productivity shocks, commodity prices, and the “animal spirits” of consumers
and business managers. While there is a financial aspect to most of these forces, the assumption
that their only impact on the real economy occurs via financial conditions is clearly too strong.
In light of these considerations, policymakers cannot know the extent to which a policy change
will alter an FCI, or the extent to which a change in an FCI foreshadows a change in the
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economy. Even so, an effective FCI may provide policymakers with a useful guide, especially in
periods when the link between policy setting and financial conditions seems weak, or when the
policy tools in use are stretched beyond their normal range. Just as a Taylor-type rule can inform
(and helpfully constrain) the use of policy discretion, an FCI can serve as one guide to the
effective stance of policy, after taking into account all the other factors that affect financial
variables.
Consider, for example, the period of Federal Reserve rate hikes from 2004 to 2006. In this era of
the “Greenspan conundrum,” a number of FCIs in wide use suggested that broad financial
conditions remained accommodative despite rising policy interest rates and a flattening yield
curve. The same FCIs also showed the most extremely restrictive conditions in late 2008, even
after the funds rate hit zero, the authorities had introduced a policy duration commitment, the
Fed balance sheet had doubled in size, excess reserves had ballooned by a factor of 50, and
policymakers had undertaken or announced plans for massive purchases of securities with some
degree of credit risk. Indeed, a comparison of the paths for a specific FCI that we will construct
later over previous periods of policy tightening or periods of policy easing shows that the 2004-
06 and 2007-09 episodes are outliers in opposite directions. Precisely for that reason, they
provide useful information to policymakers.
To be sure, FCIs are not underpinned by a structural model derived from stable underlying
microeconomic foundations. As such, their stability and predictive power is questionable. They
are certainly vulnerable to the Lucas critique: Policy changes (or, more precisely, policy regime
changes) reduce their utility. However, structural models with a role for a credit sector and for
unconventional monetary policy are only now beginning to be explored, and they remain
rudimentary (see Gertler and Kiyotaki, 2009 and Brunnermeier and Sannikov, 2009). It may be
many years before such structural models can provide a reasonable basis for assessing specific
policy choices. From a practical point of view, then, the use of reduced-form statistical
techniques like those employed in creating FCIs is virtually the only means currently available to
assess the impact of specific unconventional policy choices at the zero bound.
2.2 Which Variables to Include in an FCI
In principle, the range of potential financial measures to include in an FCI is quite vast.
Consider, for example, the neoclassical channels of transmission. There is a long list of financial
price measures that influence the user cost of capital, including the interest rates that firms pay to
borrow (both short- and long-term) and the price at which they could raise new equity capital.
Not surprisingly, equity prices, the shape of the yield curve and measures of credit risk have long
been used as financial indicators of future economic activity, and are common components of
FCIs. Similarly, prices that affect household wealth – including those of equities and houses – or
consumer interest rates that affect the tradeoff between consumption today and consumption
tomorrow would be natural candidates for an FCI.
The non-neoclassical or credit channels point to an even broader array of possible FCI
components, including measures of liquidity, of borrower risk, and of the capacity and
willingness of intermediaries to lend. In light of information asymmetries, the value of collateral
often is critical in determining whether borrowers can obtain credit, so the asset prices of key
6

types of collateral may be useful in an FCI. Uncertainty about the value of collateral also can be
an obstacle to obtaining credit, so the volatility of these asset prices may be relevant, too. Finally,
liquidity conditions (including the ability to roll over debt and to sell assets easily) and the status
of their own capital also influence the propensity of intermediaries to lend. For some
intermediary-related indicators – like the excess cost of an interbank loan above the expected
policy rate – it is difficult to disentangle the liquidity component from the borrower-risk
component, but both matter for the credit channels of transmission.
In contrast to the neoclassical channels, which are generally measured via asset prices or interest
rates, some of the non-neoclassical channels may be measured via quantity indicators or even
surveys. The volume of transactions helps to quantify actual access to credit. In addition, survey
measures of lending standards and conditions may be useful in assessing prospective access to
credit.
2.3 How FCIs Have Been Constructed in Practice
Early research on financial conditions centered on the slope of the yield curve. Studies published
in the late 1980s and early 1990s found the yield curve to be a reliable predictor of economic
activity (Estrella and Hardouvelis, 1991; Harvey 1988; Laurent 1989; Stock and Watson, 1989).
The spread between the fed funds rate and 10-year Treasury yield has been a key component of
the Conference Board’s index of leading indicators since 1996. Credit risk, as measured by the
commercial paper-Treasury bill spread, has also been used as a leading indicator of output since
the late 1980s (Friedman and Kuttner 1992; Stock and Watson, 1989), and Gilchrist, Yankov,
and Zakrajšek (2009) have recently proposed improved credit risk spreads with good forecasting
performance over the past decade. The yield curve has been found to outperform other financial
variables in terms of predicting recessions, though stock market performance has been found by
some to be a useful recession predictor as well (Estrella and Mishkin, 1996). Stock market
variables have been included in indexes of leading indicators since the 1950s (Zarnowitz, 1992).
The Bank of Canada (BOC) pioneered work on broader financial condition measures in the mid-
1990s, when it introduced its monetary conditions index (MCI, Freedman, 1994). For the BOC,
the exchange rate was the most important additional variable. Its MCI, therefore, consisted of a
weighted average of its refinancing rate and the exchange rate. The weights were determined via
simulations with macroeconomic models designed to quantify the relative effect of a given
percentage change in each variable on GDP or final demand. In the case of Canada, a relatively
open economy, the exchange rate was given a weight equal to about one-third that of the
refinancing rate. For a more closed economy like the United States, the weight given to the
exchange rate is considerably smaller. The MCI was used to help evaluate how much adjustment
in the refinancing rate might be needed to offset the macroeconomic effects of a swing in the
exchange rate in order to maintain a desired stance of monetary conditions or degree of monetary
accommodation.
Over the course of the late 1990s, MCIs along the lines constructed by BOC became a widely
used tool to assess the stance of monetary policy in many countries. Moreover, the scope of
variables augmenting the effects of policy rates was broadened to include long-term interest
7

rates, equity prices, and even house prices (on the grounds that rising house prices increased the
borrowing capacity of households). These broader measures became known as financial
condition indexes (FCIs) in order to distinguish them from MCIs.
A variety of methodologies for constructing FCIs have been developed over time, and tend to fall
into two broad categories: a weighted-sum approach and a principal-components approach. In
the weighted-sum approach, the weights on each financial variable are generally assigned based
on estimates of the relative impacts of changes in the variables on real GDP. These estimates or
weights have been generated in a variety of ways, including simulations with large-scale
macroeconomic models, vector autoregression (VAR) models, or reduced-form demand
equations.
The second broad approach is a principal components methodology, which extracts a common
factor from a group of several financial variables. This common factor captures the greatest
common variation in the variables and is either used as the FCI or is added to the central bank
policy rate to make up the FCI (this latter method is a combination of the weighted-sum
approach and the principal-components approach).
In most cases, financial condition indexes are based on the current value of financial variables,
but some take into account lagged financial variables as well. Some FCIs can be interpreted as
the summarizing the impact of financial conditions on growth, others can be interpreted as
measuring whether financial conditions have tightened or loosened.
Though the specific variables included in various FCIs differ considerably, there are
commonalities. Most FCIs include some measure of short-term interest rates, long-term interest
rates, risk premia, equity market performance, and exchange rates. In the weighted-average
approach, some FCIs use the outright levels of each variable, and some standardize the variables
by subtracting the variable’s mean and dividing by its standard deviation in each case. The
components are predominantly rates or financial prices (or derivatives of prices). In a few cases
a stock market wealth or market capitalization variable is included. One FCI uses a Federal
Reserve survey of lending standards; another FCI incorporates energy prices and a measure of
narrow money. None of the FCIs include stock or flow measures of any broader categories of
credit.
In what follows, we consider seven well-established FCIs: the Bloomberg FCI, the Citi FCI, the
Deutsche Bank (DB) FCI, the Goldman Sachs (GS) FCI, the Kansas City Federal Reserve
Financial Stress Index (KCFSI), the Macroeconomic Advisers Monetary and Financial
Conditions Index, and the OECD FCI. While a number of other FCIs have been developed,
these particular indexes span a wide range of construction methodologies and financial variables,
and most are generally available.4 Figure 2.2 plots the various FCIs. Table 2.1 includes a
comprehensive list of the variables included in each index considered and Table 2.2 provides a
summary of each index’s methodology. A short description of each index follows.

4
Other U.S. financial conditions indexes include those developed by Beaton, Lalonde and Luu (2009); Goodhart
and Hoffmann (2001); Montagnoli and Napolitano (2006); and Swiston (2008).
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Bloomberg Financial Conditions Index
The Bloomberg FCI is readily accessible to those in financial markets and updated daily, making
it a convenient measure to track financial conditions. The index is an equally weighted sum of
three major sub-indexes: money market indicators (one-third weight), bond market indicators
(one-third weight), and equity market indicators (one-third weight) (Rosenberg, 2009). Each
major sub-index is then made up of a series of underlying indicators, which receive an equal
weight in that sub- index. Each indicator is standardized to show the number of standard
deviations above or below the index’s 1991 to mid-2007 average (the Z-score). The overall FCI
is also standardized in that manner. The index consists of 10 variables in total, with history
available from 1991.
Citi Financial Conditions Index

The Citi FCI is a weighted sum of six financial variables, where the weights were determined
according to reduced-form forecasting equations of the Conference Board’s index of coincident
indicators (the six-month percent change in the coincident index) (D’Antonio, 2008). The
variables in the index include corporate spreads, money supply, equity values, mortgage rates,
the trade-weighted dollar, and energy prices; all nominal values are deflated. The FCI uses
various transformations and lags of the indicators, according to what anticipates movements in
the coincident index. This index is available from 1983.
Deutsche Bank Financial Conditions Index

Deutsche Bank utilizes a principal components approach in its FCI (Hooper, Mayer and Slok,
2007; Hooper, Slok and Dobridge, 2010). The first principal component is extracted from a set
of seven standardized financial variables that include the exchange rate, and bond, stock, and
housing market indicators. The FCI is then set to the weighted sum of this principal component
and the target federal funds rate, where the weights are determined in a regression of real GDP
growth on the financial variables and lagged GDP growth. The level of the index can be
interpreted as the percentage point drag or boost to GDP from financial conditions at a point in
time, depending on whether the index is negative or positive, respectively. The Deutsche Bank
index is available from 1983.
Goldman Sachs Financial Conditions Index

The Goldman Sachs FCI is a weighted sum of a short-term bond yield, a long-term corporate
yield, the exchange rate, and a stock market variable (Dudley and Hatzius, 2000; Dudley,
Hatzius and McKelvey, 2005). The Federal Reserve Board’s macroeconomic model (the
FRB/US model), together with Goldman Sachs modeling, were used to determine the weights.
Since 2005, the long-term corporate yield has been measured as a sum of the 10-year swap rate
and the 10-year credit default swap spread (CDX); prior to 2005, the less-liquid Moody’s A-
rated corporate bond index was used. As the CDX only started trading in 2003, a longer-dated
FCI—from 1980—was created by splicing the old and new indexes. An increase in the Goldman
Sachs FCI indicates tightening of financial conditions, and a decrease indicates easing. The
index is set so that October 20, 2003 = 100. Unlike the other indexes, the Goldman Sachs index
exhibits a noticeable downward trend because it uses levels of the financial variables, as opposed
to using spreads or using changes in the variables as in most other indexes.
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Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Financial Stress Index
This index was developed in early 2009, and is a principal-components measure of 11
standardized financial indicators (Hakkio and Keeton, 2009). The financial variables chosen by
the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City can be divided into two categories: yield spreads and
asset price behavior. They were chosen to satisfy three criteria: 1) be available monthly with a
history extending back to at least 1990; 2) be market prices or yields; and 3) represent at least
one of five financial stress features that were identified by the Kansas City Federal Reserve
(including increased uncertainty about assets’ fundamental values, or decreased willingness to
hold risky assets). A positive index value indicates that financial stress is higher than its longer
term average, and vice versa for a negative value. The series is updated monthly and history is
available from 1990.
Macroeconomic Advisers Monetary and Financial Conditions Index

Macroeconomic Advisers constructed its monetary and financial conditions index in the late
1990s to take into account the dynamic effects of financial variables on GDP over time
(Macroeconomic Advisers, 1998). They developed a “surface impulse response” methodology
in aggregating the five different financial variables into an FCI: a real short rate, real long rate,
dividend ratio, real exchange rate, and real stock market capitalization. Response functions were
generated by estimating the partial effects of changes in the financial variable on real GDP
growth over time using simulations with MA’s large-scale macroeconomic model. The response
functions were then inverted and aggregated so that the MA FCI at any point in time shows the
combined effects of current and past changes in each of the financial variables on real GDP
growth in the current period. The index incorporates 38 quarters of financial variable lags and is
available from 1982:Q4.
OECD Financial Conditions Index

The OECD FCI was constructed in 2008 and is a weighted sum of six financial variables
(Guichard and Turner, 2008), where the variables are weighted according to their effects on GDP
over the next four to six quarters. One major difference between this index and others is that it
includes a variable for tightening of credit standards: the Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer
Survey’s series for the net percent of banks tightening standards for large and medium-sized
firms. The OECD set the index weights from a regression of the output gap on a distributed lage
of the financial indicators. The weights were normalized relative to the change in interest rates,
so that a one unit increase in the FCI is equivalent to the GDP effects of a one-percentage-point
increase in the real long-term interest rate. A one-unit increase in the FCI indicates that tighter
financial conditions could reduce real GDP by about 0.6 percentage points over the next 4 to 6
quarters. The OECD FCI has history back to 1995.
When we compare movements in these different indexes in Figure 2.2, we see the following:
x Despite wide ranges of coverage and methodologies, all the indexes show a large
deterioration of financial conditions during the past two years and a strong bounce back
(to about neutral) by the latter part of 2009.
x None of the indexes shows a large deterioration of financial conditions in the years
around 1990. At the time, this period was often viewed as characterized by substantial
financial headwinds.
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x There is some noticeable disagreement about how stimulative financial conditions were
during the years leading up to the current crisis, and about whether or not the
deterioration in the recent crisis was unprecedented relative to experience over the past
two decades.
x Some of this disagreement may hinge on the relative weight placed on monetary policy,
which tends to run counter to and mitigate the effects of swings in private market
financial conditions. Indexes that showed the deterioration of financial conditions during
the recent crisis to be unprecedented did not include the level of fed funds or closely
related short term rate. Indexes that include the level of the policy rate or a close
substitute showed the recent decline to be closer in magnitude to the decline that occurred
around the beginning of the decade.
3. TESTING THE PREDICTIVE POWER OF FINANCIAL CONDITIONS
In this section we turn to an empirical investigation of how well financial conditions anticipate
movements in real economic activity. We begin by assessing the predictive performance of
single financial variables that have been viewed as useful leading indicators — the term spread,
stock returns, and so on. We then turn to the performance of the broader measures of financial
conditions as captured by the FCIs discussed in Section 2.
3.1 Prediction Tests with Single-Variable Financial Indicators.
To establish a baseline for judging performance, we begin by assessing the predictive

performance of five individual financial variables that are commonly considered to be useful
leading indicators:
1. The term spread (the spread between 10-year Treasury notes and the federal funds rate).
2. Real M2 (nominal M2 deflated by the personal consumption expenditures deflator).
3. The S&P 500 stock price index.
4. The level of the federal funds rate as a key indicator of monetary policy.
5. The short-term credit spread (the spread between the three-month commercial paper rate and
the three-month Treasury bill rate).
The first three of these are well established as the financial components of the Conference
Board’s index of leading indicators. The other two are commonly used as well.5
To gauge the performance of these five indicators, we considered their ability to predict (over
horizons of two and four quarters ahead) the growth of four different measures of real economic
activity: real GDP, payroll employment, the index of industrial production (IP), and the civilian
unemployment rate. Our interest was in determining how well the financial variables would
perform after taking into account each activity variable’s autoregressive structure (the ability of
the variable’s recent historical movements to predict its future movements). The analysis was

5
The literature on the forecasting performance of these and other financial indicators is vast. Stock and Watson
(2003) surveys the pre-2003 literature.

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done both in-sample and post-sample. Our approach is in the spirit of Bernanke (1990), who
tested the marginal forecasting power of various interest rate spreads for economic activity and
inflation after taking into account the autoregressive structure of each variable.
The in-sample regression specification we employed was:
px px
yt h yt E 0 ¦ Ii 'yt 1i ¦ J i xt 1i et i (1)
i 1 i 1
where yt denotes the real activity indicator (the logarithms of real GDP, employment, or IP or
the level of unemployment rate), and xt denotes the financial indicator (the first difference of the
federal funds rate, the first difference of the logarithm of real M2, the first difference of the
logarithm of the SP500, or the level of the interest rate spreads). Our data are quarterly, and h
denotes the forecast horizon (so that h = 2 or 4 quarters). The parameters py and px denote the
number of lags of 'y and x used in the regressions, which were fixed at py = px = 4 for the in-
sample analysis.
In-sample results.
Table 3.1 shows results for these in-sample regressions estimated using data for most of the past
five decades, but not including the current recession (t = 1961:Q1 – 2006:Q4). (Forecasts for the
current recession are examined in the post-sample results below.) The table is divided into two
panels, the top panel showing the results for growth over the next two quarters and the bottom
panel showing the results for growth over the next four quarters. In each panel, the activity
variable y being predicted is shown in the top row and the financial indicator x being used to
predict it is listed in the left column. Three statistics are given for each regression:
x Rx2/ 'y is the partial R2 for the lags of x given the lags of 'y, which shows the
proportion of the overall variance in the activity variable that is explained by the
financial variables net of the variance explained by the autoregressive component of
the regression.
x F is the F-statistic testing the hypothesis that the coefficients on the lags of x are zero
with its p-value shown in parentheses. (A p-value less than 0.05 means that the
estimated coefficients on lags of x are statistically significantly different from zero at
the 5% significance level.)
x QLR is the Quandt likelihood ratio F-statistic which tests the null hypothesis that the
coefficients on lags of x are stable over the sample period. Again, p-values are shown
in parentheses, and a p-value that is less than 0.05 (corresponding to QLR statistics
12

greater than 4.1) indicates statistically significant evidence of instability in the
coefficients.6
The results indicate that the financial variables are useful in explaining the variance in the two
and four-quarter ahead growth of the activity variables. The partial R2s generally fall in range of
0.1 to 0.2, and the F-statistics are uniformly significant at the 5% level. However, the QLR
statistics show substantial evidence of instability (31 of the 40 QLR statistics are significant at
the 5% level). While the specific source of instability is unclear, the outcome should not be
surprising. The potential for instability was highlighted in Section 2 that focused on the
conceptual background of financial conditions indicators. Just to recall, such in-sample
instability can arise for a wide variety of reasons, including financial innovation, structural
changes in the economy, and threshold effects (and other nonlinearities that are not captured in
the linear model). Inclusion of the lagged activity indicators may not eliminate these sources of
instability. The statistical fit was generally at least as good for 4-quarter-ahead results as for 2-
quarter-ahead predictions, and there was no evidence of a greater incidence of instability at the
longer horizon. Among the five separate financial factors, the stock market index exhibited
greater stability, especially at the 4-quarter horizon, but it also explained a somewhat smaller
portion of the total variance than the others.
Post-sample tests
Our post-sample prediction analysis is carried out using “pseudo-out-of-sample” calculations that
rely on the same regression specification used above, but estimated recursively through the
forecast period.7 Specifically, forecasts at time period t are constructed by estimating the
regression coefficients using data from the beginning of the sample through period t; these
estimated regression coefficients are then used to forecast yt+h. The process is repeated to
construct forecasts at time t+1, and so on through the end of the sample (2009:Q4). The lag
lengths on the x’s and 'y’s were chosen (at each forecast date) by BIC, a standard method for
estimating lag-lengths.8 The pseudo-of-sample predictions were started in 1971 to allow for a
minimum of 40 quarterly observations in the regressions used for the initial forecast. As a
benchmark for comparison, we also constructed pseudo-out-of-sample forecasts using an

6
The QLR (Quandt Likelihood Ratio) test statistic is a version of the familiar Chow-test for structural instability,
which is used when there is uncertainty about the potential break-date in the coefficients. The QLR test statistic is
the largest of the Chow F-statistics computed for every possible break-date in the middle 70% of the sample period.
For a textbook discussion of the test see Stock and Watson (2007, Chapter 14).

7
These are called “pseudo-” out-of-sample, because they were not actually computed in real-time over the sample
period. Importantly, in our context, they do not reflect revisions in the real activity indicators or real M2.
8
BIC (Bayes information criteria), also called the SIC (Schwartz information criteria), balances the tradeoff between
improved model fit (reducing a regression’s sum of squared residuals) and increases in sampling error (larger
coefficient standard errors) associated with augmenting the forecasting model with additional lags. See Stock and
Watson (2007, Chapter 14). In this application we allow py to take on values between 0 and 4, and px to take on
values between 1 and 4 (so that at least one lag of x enters the regression).
13

autoregressive model (which had the same form of the model above, but excluded the financial
variable (x) regressors).
Table 3.2 shows the root mean square forecast errors (RMSE) computed for the post-sample
predictions produced by the various equations. The quarterly results are aggregated (averaged)
into the eight 5-year subperiods since 1970 shown in the top row of the table. As with the in-
sample results in Table 3.1, this table too is split in half, with the top half devoted to 2-quarter
ahead predictions and the bottom half 4-quarter-ahead predictions. In each half, the top panel of
data shows the RMSE for the autoregressive (AR) models (excluding financial factors) for each
of the four real activity variables. The rows below show results for the equations with each of
the five financial factors (listed in the first column). In the top half of the table (for h = 2) we
show somewhat more detailed results for the fed funds model to help explain the results below.
Each of the rows for fed funds shows the root mean square forecast error relative to the
associated RMSE for the AR model. For example, in the first subperiod, 1970:Q1-1974:Q4, the
RMSE for predicting real GDP was 1.03 (that is, the RMSE using fed funds was 1.03 times
greater than the corresponding RMSE for the autoregressive model). Similarly, the relative
RMSEs for employment, IP, and unemployment were 1.08, 1.24 and 1.09, respectively. The
average of these four relative RMSEs, 1.11, is reported in the next line down. And in the lines
that follow, similarly constructed averages are reported for the other four financial indicators.
The more detailed results underlying these averages for the other indicators are presented in the
appendix tables.
Several notable patterns emerge in the results:
x First, in the benchmark autoregressive models, prediction errors dropped substantially

after mid-1985 and remained low for the next 20 years. We view this pattern as evidence
of the Great Moderation. The recent reemergence of pronounced volatility of economic
activity is evident in the substantial rise of the RMSE of the AR models in the latest
subperiod.
x Second, at both two and four-quarter forecast horizons, the models including financial
indicators generally improved on AR forecasts (relative RMSEs < 1) through the mid-
1980s, after which their performance was relatively worse. The fjive simple financial
indicators generally did not enhance – indeed they tended to worsen – the accuracy of
post-sample prediction of economic activity during the Great Moderation. During the
most recent period, with increased economic volatility, the simple financial indicator
models, on average, were about on a par with the AR models.
x Third, the financial indicator models performed especially poorly relative to the AR
models in the second half of 1980s. The result should not come as a surprise in light of
14

the in-sample results pointing to instability.9 While the specific reasons for this
breakdown are not immediately evident, the discussion in Section 2.1 highlighted several
potential explanations.
x Fourth, among the five simple indicator models, the stock market variable outperformed
the AR model over the past decade, perhaps reflecting the relative importance of wealth
effects on private spending during the 2001 and 2007-09 recessions. The credit spread
also did relatively well during the most recent five years.10 These findings are consistent
with our earlier observation that the credit spread and especially the stock market variable
showed greater evidence of in-sample stability.
These results í including the evidence of in-sample instability and, with some exceptions, the
failure to outperform simple autoregressive relationships in post-sample predictions in recent
decades – are consistent with results found by earlier researchers (Stock and Watson (2003)).
We see two ways to account for the evidence of instability in using simple financial indicators to
predict real economic activity. Either “financial conditions” are unstable predictors of activity,
or the simple indicators we have considered are unstable indicators of financial conditions more
broadly. The tests we consider next should shed some light on this issue.
3.2 Prediction Tests with Financial Conditions Indexes.
As we discussed in Section 2, FCIs pool information across multiple financial indicators, and
therefore tend to be more representative of broad financial conditions than any single indicator
could be. To see if this pooling of information improves performance in predicting real activity,
we have used the same pseudo-out-sample analysis outlined above for the various FCIs
described in Section 2.
Before showing the results, we highlight two features of the FCIs previously discussed in Section
2 that make this exercise different from the exercise using the individual financial indicators.
First, a long history is available for the individual indicators, but the available history for the
FCIs is much shorter. The various FCIs are available over different sample periods; the

9
The pattern of instability also surfaces when carrying out the analysis using regressions estimated over 40-quarter
rolling samples (that is, 40-quarter fixed sample period lengths) rather than recursive estimates (that is, using fixed
starting points with sample periods that lengthen with each new observation). Overall, these rolling regressions did
not perform better than the recursive results, but they outperformed marginally during the latter 1980s.

10
We also carried out the analysis using the credit spreads constructed in Gilchrist, Yankov, and Zakrajšek (2009;
hereafter GYZ) that are available for the post-1990 period. GYZ construct 20 spreads that differ in maturity and
default risk. Over the final two five-year periods (2000:Q1-2004:Q4, and 2005:Q1-EOS), the average RMSEs were
0.98 and 0.78 for h = 2 and 1.22 and 0.87 for h = 4. Results using a single principal component from the 20 spreads
were similar (0.96 and 0.71 for h = 2 and 1.13 and 0.83 for h = 4). Thus, consistent with results reported in GYZ,
we find that their default spreads forecast relatively well during the 2000’s.
15

Goldman-Sachs (GS) index starts in 1980:I and has the longest history, while the OECD index
starts in 1995:I and has the shortest history. The second feature is that several of the FCIs were
constructed by fitting real activity measures over some portion of the period that we used for our
post-sample tests. This may impart an upward bias to their measured forecasting accuracy in our
tests of their performance in predicting real activity.11
Pseudo-out-of-sample forecasts were computed as in the previous section, but with the various
FCIs used as the x variables in the regressions. The results for this forecasting exercise are
summarized in Table 3.3, which shows the average relative RMSEs for each FCI over the same
5-year periods used in Table 3.2. The limited history of the FCIs leads to a large number of
blank entries in the table because forecasts are constructed from regressions using a minimum of
40 quarterly observations. Thus, for example, because the GS FCI begins in 1980:Q1, the first 2-
quarter ahead forecast was constructed in 1991:Q4 to allow for a maximum of 4 lags.
The key findings in Table 3.3 can be summarized as follows:
x Pooling of information appears to improve the predictive ability of financial indicators, at

least during periods of unusual financial stress. The FCIs outperformed the single
financial indicator models on average, and the best of the FCIs outperformed the stock
market index (the best of the single indicator models). However, the average performance
of the FCIs was not better than that of the stock market index.
x During the 1990s, some of the available FCIs did not do as well as the AR model
(relative RMSEs > 1.0) or the single indicator models. After 2000, the FCIs showed a
noticeable improvement relative to both the AR model and the single financial indicator
models.
x There is some evidence that in-sample overfitting is not a significant factor: During the
most recent five-year period, the DB (PC) and the DB (FCI) performed comparably
despite the former’s advantage of being constructed explicitly to predict GDP.
x Over the past decade, the KCFSI performed near the average of the FCIs, so we use it
below as representative.

11
For this reason we also used the principal component (PC) portion of the DB index, which is not subject to such a
bias and should therefore give us some indication on the potential significance of this bias. Because the GS index
exhibits substantial low-frequency (“trending”) behavior, we carried out the analysis using two versions of the
index, level and first-difference. Figure 2.2 shows the year-over year difference in the GS index.
16

4. CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW FINANCIAL CONDITIONS INDEX
We seek to address three limitations of earlier financial conditions indexes. First, previous FCIs
cover only a limited span of history. Second, the narrowness of the underlying series included in
the indexes results in the exclusion of potentially important financial conditions. Third, previous
FCIs do not purge their measures of endogenous movements related to business cycle
fluctuations or of monetary policy influences and so are less representative of the shocks to the
financial system.
In this section we develop a new, broader index of financial conditions in an effort to overcome
the limitations of previous indexes. An important goal was to see if we could improve predictive
performance compared to existing FCIs, especially in light of the perceived importance of shifts
in financial conditions in driving the most recent recession and recovery. Accordingly, we
established two criteria for the design and construction of a new index. First, it needed to cover a
wide range of financial variables, substantially wider than the coverage of any of the existing
FCIs covered. Second, it needed to have a relatively long history, ideally going back at least to
the early 1970s. As we will see, there is a tension between wide coverage and long history
(many interesting financial variables have become available only relatively recently), but we
were able to overcome some of this tension by using econometric methods designed for
unbalanced panel datasets. Third, we purged the underlying series that make up the financial
conditions index of cyclical influences.
4.1 Selection of Financial Variables
The 44 variables we selected to include in our index are listed in Table 4.1. Our starting point
for the selection of these variables was the coverage of existing FCIs – we wanted to begin with
a relatively full representation of the variables included in the FCIs surveyed in Section 2 (as laid
out in Table 2.1). This did not mean complete coverage of all the variables in Table 2.1, as there
is a fair amount of overlap of very similar but not identical variables used in the different FCIs;
for example, while Table 2.1 lists several broad measures of the stock market, we felt that only
one was needed. We chose not to include the fed funds rate or a close substitute (such as the
short-term Treasury rate). At a later stage in this analysis, we also purge the FCI of monetary
policy influences that may arise from including the yield curve in the FCI.
Next, we wished to fill in areas that were not fully covered by existing FCIs. Most FCIs are
dominated by interest rate level or spread variables and by asset price variables, which we have
captured as indicated in rows 1-19 of Table 4.1. We have added several price and spread
variables that were not included in other FCIs, including new-car loan rates, jumbo mortgage
rates, and home prices. (These variables are denoted by the “X” in the third column of Figure
4.1.)
17

Existing FCIs also include few quantity or flow variables, and only one FCI included a survey
variable. During the recent financial meltdown, these indicators appeared to become much more
important than they had been in the past. At the same time, price signals became potentially less
reliable as markets seized up, nonprice credit conditions tightened dramatically, and credit flows
slowed abruptly. In an effort to capture these effects, we added 15 financial stock and flow
variables to the list, including a representative sample of bank and non-bank credit variables in a
variety of markets. We also included seven survey indicators of financial conditions from the
Fed’s Senior Loan Officer Survey of bank lending conditions, the University of Michigan’s
survey covering consumer credit conditions, and the National Federation of Independent
Business survey of small business credit conditions.12
4.2 Historical Coverage
Not all of the financial indicators we selected have histories going back as far as desired. This
unbalanced nature of our data panel is exhibited in Figure 4.1. For clarity, the start date of each
of our financial indicators is given in the fifth column of Table 4.1. Only one-fourth of the 44
series go back to the beginning of the 1970s, but two-thirds go back to the early 1980s, and about
90% to the mid-1990s. Fortunately, nearly half of the variables in the new areas we have chosen
to stress – stocks outstanding, flows, and surveys – go back to the 1970s. Many of the more
recent series have become available as new markets emerged over time, including, for example,
those relating to securitized consumer and business credit and credit default swaps.
4.3 Econometric Approach
Like some of the FCIs discussed above, we summarize the information in the indicators using
principal components. However, our methods differ from standard applications in three key
ways. First, we allow for unbalanced panels (that is, for data series that begin and end at
different points in the sample). Second, we eliminate variability in the financial variables that
can be explained by current and past real activity and inflation so that the principal components
reflect exogenous information associated with the financial sector rather than feedback from

ͳʹA natural question is whether the richness of our FCI also allows us to capture the vulnerabilities associated with
high levels of financial leverage, which have become so obvious during the financial crisis. The answer is “not
really.” Although we do include several indicators that may well proxy for leverage, such as the market
capitalization of financial stocks and the economywide level of debt, our empirical approach is only able to identify
the predictive power of a decline in leverage for subsequent economic weakness, not that of a high level of leverage.
The reason is that most if not all leverage measures are statistically non-stationary, so we need to transform them
into (log) differences before including them in our analysis. At least in theory, a different statistical approach that
aims to capture “cointegrating” relationships between the levels of different variables may be capable of capturing
such information. However, such an approach would probably need to impose considerably more theoretical
structure on the relationship between financial measures and economic outcomes than we do in our more flexible
econometric approach.
18

macroeconomic conditions.13 Third, we summarize the financial variables using more than a
single principal component. This subsection summarizes the methods used to compute the
principal components of the 44 financial series. The forecasting performance of these principal
components is discussed in the next subsection.
Let Xit denote the i’th financial indicator at time t, Yt denote a vector of macroeconomic
indicators (the growth rate of real GDP and inflation in our implementation) and consider the
regression equation
Xit = Ai(L)Yt + vit (2)
where vit is uncorrelated with current and lagged values of Yt, and thus represents the financial
variable purged of its relation with current and lagged Y. Suppose that vit can be decomposed as
vit = OiƍFt + uit. (3)
where Ft is a k×1 vector of unobserved financial factors, and uit captures “unique” variation in vit
that is unrelated to Ft and Yt. Under the assumption that the uit are uncorrelated (or “weakly”
correlated) across the financial variables, the vector Ft captures the covariation or comovement
in the financial indicators. Thus, the goal of the econometric analysis is to estimate Ft.
There is a large literature on estimating common factors in models such as this. Much of the
modern literature (see surveys in Bai and Ng (2008) and Stock and Watson (2006, 2010)) studies
so called “approximate dynamic factor models” in which Ft and uit are serially correlated, and
data are available on a reasonably large number of indicators (i = 1, …, n where n is large) over a
reasonably large sample period (t = 1, …, T where T is large). A key result in this literature is
that least squares estimators of F (principal components) are sufficiently accurate that they can
be used in subsequent regression analysis (including predictive regressions like ours) with no
first-order loss in efficiency or modification of standard regression inference procedures.
Moreover, a large empirical literature, has found these estimates useful for structural analysis
(e.g., Bernanke, Boivin, Eliasz (2005), Boivin and Giannone (2006)) and forecasting (see the
surveys Stock and Watson (2006) and Eickmeier and Zielger (2008) surveys). Motivated by
these results, we will consider least squares estimates of F.
The details of our calculations are as follows. Each of the variables listed in Table 4.1 is
transformed as indicated in the fourth column in the table (differenced, log-differenced, etc.), and
then standardized to have mean zero and unit variance. Each series was then regressed on

13
In effect, we measure financial conditions relative to the setting that would be typical at a particular stage of the
business cycle. For example, this approach means that the impact on our FCI of a 250-basis-point spread between
the yields of Baa corporate bonds and 10-year Treasuries may be restrictive during an economic expansion and
accommodative during a recession.
19

current and two lagged values of growth in real GDP and inflation (constructed from the GDP
price deflator). The residuals from these regressions, say vît , are estimates of vit. The factors are
then estimated by least squares. That is, Fˆt solves min{Oi },{ Ft } ¦ i ,t vît Oi ' Ft . The unbalanced
2
panel nature of our dataset is accommodated by summing over non-missing observations.14,15,16
Solving the least squares requires that k, the number elements in F, be specified. In the balanced
panel model, Bai and Ng (2002) propose estimators of k based on the minimized sum of squared
residuals (equivalently the maximized average R2) that results from different value of k. The
columns labeled R2 in Table 4.1 shows how the R2 for each indicator varies as k increases from k
= 0 factors (so that only Y is included in the regression) to k = 4 factors. As k increases from 0 to
4, the average R2 (shown in the last row of Table 4.1) increases steadily from 0.30 to 0.66,
suggesting considerable uncertainty in the appropriate value of k. Our examination of the fits for
the individual series suggested that substantial differences between the fit of the 1-factor and 2-
factor models for several series, but less substantial differences between the 2-factor and 3- or 4-
factor fits. Because of this uncertainty, we will consider 1, 2, and 3 factor models in our
empirical work.
5. EVALUATION OF THE NEW FINANCIAL CONDITIONS INDEX
In this section, we evaluate our new FCI by first seeing how well it predicts the growth of
economic activity relative to the AR model, the five single-variable indicators and the existing
financial conditions indexes. We also assess the extent to which the wider coverage of our index
and the econometric enhancements used in constructing the new index improved its predictive
performance. The breadth of the new index allows us to consider whether some types of
financial variables do better than others by assessing the relative predictive performance of
various subsets of the included variables. Next, we consider factors that may have contributed to
the pervasive finding of forecasting instability among FCIs, including our new one. Finally, we
review what the index portends for the period ahead in 2010.

14
When the panel is balanced, the solution to the least squares problem provides the principal components of vît
which can be computed as the eigenvectors of the sample covariance matrix. In the unbalanced panel, iterative
methods can be used to find the least squares solution.
15
Because OiƍFt = OiƍHí1HFt for any non-singular matrix H, only the column space of the factors can be identified
from the data, and so an arbitrary normalization is imposed on the least squares problem. However, only the column
space of Ft matters for our predictive regressions (the fitted value from a regression of y onto F is the same as the
fitted value from the regression of y onto HF), so the normalization has no effect on the forecasts.
16
We carried out estimation of the factors for all dates in which we have data on 11 or more financial indicators.
20

5.1 Prediction Tests with New FCI
The one-factor variant of our FCI is shown in Figure 5.1. The series is standardized to have
mean zero and unit standard deviation over the sample period, so that it is measured in standard
deviation units. With one notable exception, the new FCI follows a pattern that is broadly
similar since the early 1990s to those we reviewed in Figure 2.2: both showed a substantial
deterioration in financial conditions near the start of the millennium and more recently, with the
recent move being somewhat more severe. Both also show a substantial rebound over the past
year from crisis lows. The one notable exception is that most recently (in the second half of
2009, our index shows a substantial deterioration whereas the alternative FCIs did not. We will
discuss the reasons for this deterioration, an interesting result, at the end of this section.17 Going
back further, our index showed substantial deteriorations in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, both
periods of severe recession, and an impressive spike down in 1987 coinciding with the stock
market crash in October of that year.
How well does the new index predict economic activity? Table 5.1 summarizes the pseudo-out-
of-sample forecasting results based on regression models with one, two and three factors. The
results are shown in the same format as we discussed for Tables 3.2 and 3.3 (the data entries are
the average relative RMSEs using those for the AR models in Table 3.2 as the benchmark). For
purposes of comparison, the table also shows the average prediction errors of the AR model,
representative single variable and existing FCI models (the S&P 500 and the KCFSI) from Table
3.2, as well as the averages across the single variables and all the existing FCIs we surveyed.
The key results can be summarized as follows:
x The one-factor variant generally performed at least as well as the two- and three-factor
versions. Evidently, while more than a single factor is needed to capture the co-
movement in the 44 financial variables, only the dominant factor helps forecast future
real activity. In what follows, we focus on the one-factor version.
x The one-factor FCI generally tracked future GDP growth better than the AR model—this
was especially so during the recent downturn as evident in Table 5.1 and Figure 5.2
(which compares the new FCI and AR predictions of GDP growth). However, the FCI
substantially underperformed the AR model during the late 1990s, a period when
financial conditions appeared to be worsening but economic growth was robust.
x The new FCI did better than the average single financial indicator in most subperiods,
including both the period of the early 1990s and the past decade. It also outperformed the
best of the single-factor indicators, the stock market index, over the past five years, but
underperformed significantly in a couple of the earlier subperiods. These patterns are

17
To update our FCI through the fourth quarter of 2009, we estimated a number of series obtained from the Flow of
Funds, as described in the data Annex.
21

evident both in Table 5.1, which compares prediction errors averaged across activity
variables and in Figures 5.3a and 5.3b, which show the predicted and actual rates of real
GDP growth using the new FCI, the S&P500 and the existing FCIs.
x Our FCI did somewhat better than other FCIs over three of the four subperiods for which
we have results for both sets, but worse during one (the second half of the 1990s).
x Like the other FCIs, our new FCI performed noticeably better after 2000, especially over
the most recent five-year period, than it did earlier.
While constructive, these findings cause us to raise several notes of caution. First, the variability
of the results over time, with noticeable degradation of relative performance in the late 1980s and
latter 1990s, is once again indicative of instability in the relationship between financial
conditions and real economic activity. Second, the relatively poor performance of our FCI
during the second half of the 1990s in particular suggests that that period merits closer
inspection. Third, the better performance during the most recent five years (relative to both the
average of the alternative FCIs and KC Fed’s index as representative of one of the better
performing FCIs) may reflect selection bias in our choice of variables to include in the index:
naturally, our selection was governed in part by an understanding of the types of financial
variables that were used for monitoring and measuring the recent financial crisis. In this sense,
we did not seek to mitigate observer bias.
5.2 Testing the new FCI’s enhancements of the existing technology
The key features of our FCI that distinguish it from extant FCIs are (1) its broader coverage of
existing and more recent financial variables, including indicators other than rates, spreads and
asset prices, (2) the use of unbalanced panel estimation techniques to substantially lengthen the
history of the FCI, and (3) the purging of financial variables of macroeconomic influences
(represented by A(L)Yt in equation 2, Section 4.2 above) .
To gauge the effects of these enhancements, we ran prediction tests with several different
versions of the new FCI, including a (nearly) balanced panel variant, a decomposition of the
index by type of financial variable, and a version that was not purged of macroeconomic
influences. The results of these tests are presented in Table 5.2.
Balanced panel. We constructed a variant of our new FCI that limited the financial variables
included to those with histories going back to at least 1980 (that is, 28 of the 44 variables), so
that the panel was “balanced” back to 1980 but not before. The relative predictive performance
of this variant provides some indication of how increasing the number of financial variables in
the index, especially in more recent years, may have affected new FCI’s performance.
22

The baseline new FCI outperforms the narrower, balanced panel variant over the past two
decades on average, including the most recent period, suggesting meaningful gains from the
wider coverage. However, during the 1980s, the balanced panel variant outperformed
significantly.
Decomposition tests. The richness of the coverage of our FCI across a variety of types of
financial variables allows us considerable latitude to test whether some types of variables do
better than others in predicting movements in economic activity. Table 4.1 groups the 44
financial series underlying our FCI into five categories (interest rate levels and spreads (14
series), asset prices (5 series), stock and flow quantities (15 series), surveys (7 series), and 2nd
moment or risk measures (3 series)). Figure 5.4 decomposes the FCI into components associated
with variables in these categories.18 A cursory inspection of the panels in this figure indicates
that historically, interest rate spreads have been the most important source of movement of our
FCI. They explain most of the steady decline in the FCI during the later 1990s and more
recently. In the most recent period of the financial crisis, all five categories contributed to the
decline in our FCI.
The results shown in Table 5.2 summarize our forecast tests for a slightly more nuanced
decomposition of the individual series, where the interest rate or spread variables have been
subdivided into liquidity indicators and credit indicators. The specific indicators in each
category are listed in the appendix. The results indicate that no single component stood out as
consistently better: Some outperformed in some subperiods and others in other subperiods. The
overall FCI often did better than any of its major components. This was especially true during
the most recent period when the overall FCI outperformed each of the separate categories (as
well as the star performer among individual financial variables, the stock market index) by wide
margins. This result suggests that there are significant benefits to be gained from pooling a large
set of financial indicators. But the force of this observation may be weakened by the
aforementioned selection bias in our construction of the new FCI. Moreover, in at least one
subperiod (the latter 1990s), the overall index did significantly worse than its subcomponents.
Purging macro influences. Our third test entailed using the index constructed with all 44
variables, but where the input variables were not purged of the effects of movements in
economic activity (GDP growth and inflation--i.e., those effects represented by A(L)Yt in
equation 2, as discussed in Section 4.2 above). The second to last row in each half of Table 5.2
shows prediction results for the unpurged index. A comparison with the top row of each table
indicates that purging the underlying variables of macro influences yields noticeably better

ͳͺAt each date, the FCI is a linear combination of the 44 variables, where the weights change through time because
of the unbalanced nature of the data set. Each panel in Figure 5.4 shows the contribution to the overall FCI of the
group of variables indicated in the headline.
23

forecasting results during the early 1990s and over the past ten years, especially the most recent
period. But purging yields worse results (than the unpurged variant) during other periods.
Figure 5.5 displays the effects of purging the FCI of macro influences in a bit more detail.
During the mid-1970s and early 1980s the unpurged index was significantly more negative than
the purged index. That is, the financial indicators (particularly the interest rates and spreads,
which dominate the index in this period) suggested severe disruptions in the financial sector, but
much of this could be explained by the prevailing level of real activity and inflation. Looking at
the most recent (2009:Q4) values of the indexes, tǡ
ʹͲͲͻǣʹʹͲͲͻǣͶǤ
ǡǡǤ
ǡǡ
ʹͲͲͻǡǤ
Purging the funds rate. Our fourth test was to include the federal funds rate in the list of macro
influences to be purged before constructing our FCI. The resulting FCI is shown graphically in
Figure 5.6, and the forecast performance is shown in the last row of each half of Table 5.2. The
results show that the forecast performance of the alternative FCI is generally not too different
from our benchmark FCI; it is modestly worse for most subperiods, but less bad for the 1995-
1999 period.
Combined with the poor performance of the fed funds rate in the single-indicator results shown
in Tables 3.1 and 3.2, these results suggest that pure monetary shocks contributed relatively little
to the prediction of future economic activity during our sample period – a result consistent with
structural VAR exercises that show that monetary policy shocks explain little of the variance of
output (e.g., Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (1999)). Consequently, purging the FCI of their
influence has only a slight impact on its utility as a forecasting tool. In light of the perceived
utility of the term structure as an economic predictor, this result may come as somewhat of a
surprise. But it is also consistent with our finding (Section 3, Table 3.2) that the term structure
has not been particularly useful as a single-variable financial indicator in predicting economic
activity since the mid-1980s.
At the same time, there is evidence that monetary policy actions have been substantially more
important in specific episodes. Figure 5.6 shows that some of the biggest supportive effects from
the funds rate – i.e., the biggest gaps between the purged and unpurged FCI – occurred around
the stock market crash of 1987 and during the recent financial crisis. Moreover, our exclusive
focus on the federal funds rate as a gauge of monetary policy probably understates policy’s
impact during these episodes. In the fall of 1987, for example, the FOMC’s statement affirming
its “readiness to serve as a source of liquidity” to the financial system may have been more
important in cushioning the impact of the crash than the 50-basis-point cut in the federal funds
24

rate target. Similarly, in late 2008 and early 2009, the sharp cut in the funds rate to near zero
percent was only one aspect of the Fed’s response to the crisis. Other measures – including the
various liquidity facilities, the asset purchases, and the “stress test” for major banks – were also
very important. If we were able to include these adequately in our index, we would probably
find an even bigger impact from monetary policy during crisis episodes.
5.3 Possible sources of instability
Our tests indicate that our new FCI is a more reliable predictor of activity during recent periods,
especially the crisis episode, but was less so earlier. This instability may be cause for concern. It
points to the need to understand both the evolution of financial conditions and its underlying
causes in order to use FCIs effectively. For example, we find that purging the index of
macroeconomic influences yields substantially better results (than not purging) in some periods
(the early 1990s and the 2000s, especially most recently), but worse results in other periods. The
periods of success have been associated with episodes of considerable financial distress—the
S&L crisis of the early 1990s, the dot-com bubble burst of the early 2000s, and the more severe
financial crisis in recent years. While these episodes may have been triggered by monetary
policy restraint, the scale of turmoil was not closely related to the degree of restraint.
Our discussion in Section 2.1 noted the extent to which FCIs historically have been considered as
a way to broaden measurement of the monetary transmission mechanism. But it also noted that
at times, exogenous influences other than changes in monetary policy can be the dominant driver
of broad financial conditions. This pattern has prevailed in recent years, and may help to explain
why several FCIs functioned better more recently. To illustrate this point empirically, Figure 5.7
shows the path of the new FCI and the fed funds target in recent decades. The shading in Figure
5.7 denotes periods of Fed policy easing and the non-shaded areas periods of Fed tightening.
Until the recent episode, financial conditions generally deteriorated when the Fed tightened, and
improved when the Fed eased. During the recent crisis, however, financial conditions tightened
dramatically even as the Fed eased aggressively. The episodes of Fed tightening are summarized
in Figure 5.8, which shows the maximum, minimum, and average paths of the FCI during
periods of Fed tightening prior to the most recent one (which began in 2004).19 The path of the
FCI beginning in 2004 does show a slight deterioration of financial conditions as the Fed
tightened, but the response is unusually weak. The results for easing cycles summarized in the
same format in Figure 5.9 are more dramatic: In the most recent cycle, the FCI worsens for much
of the period more than in any prior easing cycle.
These observations suggest that financial conditions indexes do better in predicting activity
during periods dominated by exogenous financial disturbances. This pattern favors the strategy

19
The maximums and minimums are across all cycles (except for the most recent one) for any given period.
25

of purging macroeconomic influences from financial conditions measures in order to focus on
the pure financial shocks.
5.4 What our FCI tells us about the period ahead.
We noted at the outset of this section that our FCI shows an evolution of financial conditions
after the spring of 2009 that differs from the pattern of other FCIs. Whereas the existing FCIs
show the current level of financial conditions to be back at or slightly better than “normal”
levels, our index has deteriorated substantially over the past two quarters. Indeed, it has retraced
nearly half of the sharp rebound that had occurred earlier in 2009. This setback suggests that
financial conditions are somewhat less supportive of growth in real activity than suggested by
other FCIs.
How do we explain this result? We cannot rule out statistical variance in the data around a
turning point as a contributing factor. However, there may very well be an important behavioral
explanation for the retreat of financial conditions. To show this, Figure 5.10 decomposes the
changes in both the unpurged and purged versions of our FCI into the five main indicator
categories: interest rates, asset prices, quantitative indicators, surveys, and second moments. On
an unpurged basis, the interest rate, survey, and second moment indicators improved, although
some of this improvement was offset by a deterioration elsewhere.20 However, on a purged
basis, the interest rate and second moment indicators show only a modest improvement, while
the asset price, survey and especially quantitative indicators deteriorated substantially. The
deterioration in the quantitative indicators was concentrated in non-mortgage ABS issuance,
commercial mortgage debt, and repo loans.
By way of interpretation, we see two main reasons for the difference between the new FCI and
other measures: 1) the broader range of indicators included and 2) the purging of the direct
impact of the business cycle on financial conditions. Regarding 1), the improvement in financial
conditions since the spring of 2009 has been concentrated in indicators that are included in
virtually all financial conditions indexes, namely interest rates, credit spreads, and stock prices.
In contrast, several components of our FCI that have not been previously included – particularly
quantity indicators related to the performance of the “shadow banking system” such as ABS
issuance and repo loans, as well as total financial market cap – have failed to improve much it at
all. This is seen in Table 5.10 and Figure 5.11. The table shows the top contributors (across
components of our FCI) to the decline in the overall FCI during the second half of 2009. ABS
issuance is clearly at the top of the list. Figure 5.11 indicates that ABS issuance remained
relatively subdued during the second half of 2009. This suggests that the continued woes of the

20
It may seem surprising that the asset price indicators show no net improvement, given the large increase in equity
prices since the spring. However, note that our asset price indicators generally enter the FCI as (log) changes rather
than levels, and the pace of asset price improvement has slowed since the spring.
26

shadow banking system could continue to weigh on the pace of the recovery, despite the
recovery in more traditional measures of financial conditions.
Regarding the second factor, it is noteworthy that the purged FCI has deteriorated relative to the
unpurged index. This gap means that the evolution of financial conditions since mid-2009 has
fallen short of past experience in the presence of a GDP rebound. In other words, any
improvement of financial conditions was more than accounted for by the impact of past
economic growth. Consequently, the implications of current financial conditions for future
growth appear somewhat less favorable than traditional FCIs may imply.
6. CONCLUDING REMARKS
In this paper, we studied financial condition indexes and find that they can help predict economic
activity. Among single-variable indicators, a broad stock market index outperforms as a
predictor over the next two to four quarters. A representative sample of available FCIs typically
outperformed the single-variable indicators (yield curve, credit spreads, and so on), but some did
not outperform the stock market index.
We focused on improving the predictive capabilities of FCIs by: (1) expanding the data history;
(2) expanding the data coverage; and (3) disentangling macroeconomic and policy influences
from pure financial shocks. Accordingly, we developed and tested a new FCI that addresses
these matters. While our analysis was done at a quarterly frequency, it would be possible to
construct a broad FCI at a monthly interval, using both monthly and quarterly data. One notable
disadvantage of the new FCI is that its size and estimation make it more cumbersome to update
and use.
In forecasting tests, the new FCI outperformed a variety of alternative measures in recent years,
but not so during earlier periods. In analyzing this performance, we found that both purging the
FCI of macroeconomic influences and expanding coverage to a wide number and variety of
variables contributed to its relatively better performance in recent years. The exclusion of
macroeconomic influences contributed to this improvement somewhat more than the expansion
of coverage. The overall index performed noticeably better in recent years than any of its major
subcomponents (rates/spreads, asset prices, surveys, quantities, and so on).
Our finding that the relative predictive performance of our new FCI was unstable over time
reconfirmed earlier findings of instability for an array of financial indicators. Our index seemed
to work especially well in times of unusual financial stress emanating from within asset markets.
27

Purging our index of macroeconomic influences seemed to be most effective in improving its
performance during these periods.
Finally, given the nature of the recent financial and economic crisis, gauging the path of financial
conditions overall as they bear on prospects for economic activity will be an especially important
ingredient in the economic forecasts prepared for policymakers and investors alike. The
estimated level of our FCI as of the end of 2009 pointed to credit conditions that remained
somewhat tighter than the norm, implying a continuing, if modest, drag from overall financial
conditions on economic growth during 2010.
28

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31

Appendix: Data Description and Additional Results
Our new FCI is constructed from 44 individual data series, which are listed in Table 4.1. They
fall into five broad categories:
ǣ

1.Interestratesandspreads.
ǡͳͲǦ
ǡǡǤ
ǡǡ
ȀǡǤ

2.Assetprices.
Ǥ

3.Quantitativemoneyandcreditmeasures.
ʹǡ
ǡǦ
ǡǡǤ

4.Surveysofcreditconditions.Ǧ
ǡǯǡ
ǯǯǡ
ǯǤ

5.Secondmomentsofassetprices/returns. ǡ
ǦǤ

ǡǡ
ͶǤͳǤǡʹͲͲͻǡ
ǡ ǯ
Ǥ
32

Figure 2.1 A Stylized View of Financial Conditions and the Transmission Mechanism

33

Figure 2.2 Seven Alternative Financial Conditions Indices
Index* Index*
6 6
3 3
0 0
Bloomberg
-3 -3
Citi
DB
GS (inverted)
-6 -6
KC Fed (inverted)
Macroadvisers
OECD
-9 -9
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

* Notes: All FCIs are shown so that a decrease indicates tighter conditions. Some are measured
in standard deviations from the mean of their estimation period. Others depict percentage-point
contributions to GDP growth. GS depicts the year-to-year change of the FCI, whose level has a
downward trend.

34

Table 2.1: Financial Condition Index Variables
Deutsche Goldman Macro

Variable
Bloomberg Citi Bank Sachs KC Fed Advisers OECD
Yield Spreads
3m LIBOR/3m Treasury (TED) spread X X
2yr swap rate/2yr Treasury spread X
10yr swap rate X
10yr credit default swap spread X
Off-the-run/on-the-run 10yrTreasury spread X
10yr Treasury/Federal funds effective rate spread X
Aaa/10yr Treasury spread X
Baa/10yr Treasury spread X X
Baa/Aaa spread X
High-yield bond/Baa spread X
Consumer ABS /5yr Treasury spread X
Commercial paper/3mTreasury bill spread X
LIBOR/OIS spread X
Muni/10yr Treasury spread X
High yield/10yr Treasury spread X X X
Agency / Treasury spread X
Swaps/Treasury spread X
30yr conventional mortgage rate/10yr Treasury spread X
Investment-grade options-adjusted credit spread X
Interest rates
Federal funds rate X X
10yr Treasury yield X(1)
3m LIBOR X
3m euro-dollar rate X
Aaa corporate bond yield X
Effective mortgage rate X(1)
Behavior of Asset Prices
Correlation between stock & Treasury returns X
Implied volatility of stock prices (VI X index) X X
Idiosyncratic volatility of bank stock prices X
Cross-section dispersion of bank stock returns X
S&P 500 index X X X
Wilshire 5000 index X(1)
Stock market capitalization/GDP X
Dividend/price ratio (S&P 500) X
Median existing 1-family home price X
Trade-weighted dollar X(1) X X X X (1)
Other
Bank lending standards for medium and small firms X
Household equity wealth X
Zero-maturity money stock X(1)
CPI energy price index X(1)
Note: (1) Adjusted for inflation using various inflation measures; Unless indicated, variables are in nominal terms.
35

Table 2.2: Summary of Financial Condition Index Methodologies
Financial Condition Index Methodology
Bloomberg Weighted average of current financial variable values: Equal

weights for sub-indexes for money market, bond market,
and equity market variables
Citi Weighted average of financial variable values: Weights

according to reduced-form regressions forecasting the index
of coincident indicators
Deutsche Bank Principal components and weighted average of current

financial variables: principal components to create a
common financial factor; financial factor and fed funds rate
weighted according to reduced-form regression on real GDP
Goldman Sachs Weighted average of current financial variables: Weights

according to large-scale macroeconomic model estimates
Kansas City Federal Reserve Principal components to create a common financial factor
Macroeconomic Advisers Weighted average of current and lagged variables: Weights

according to simulations using a large-scale macroeconomic
model
OECD Weighted average of current financial variables: Weights

according to reduced-form regression on real GDP
36

Table 3.1:Results from In-Sample Regressions
1961:1 – 2006:IV
4 4
yt h yt E 0 ¦ Ii 'yt 1i ¦ J i xt 1i ut i
i 1 i 1
(a) h = 2
Real GDP IP Employment Unemployment Rate
Financial R2 F QLR R 2 F QLR R2 F QLR R2 F QLR
x / 'y x / 'y x / 'y x / 'y
Indicator
FedFunds 0.20 11.38 6.12 0.14 8.36 3.00 0.07 7.65 3.75 0.11 5.08 5.23
(0.000) (0.002) (0.000) (0.212) (0.000) (0.078) (0.000) (0.008)
Term 0.08 4.08 9.03 0.05 2.85 8.21 0.03 3.75 7.36 0.12 5.50 4.48
Spread (0.003) (0.000) (0.022) (0.000) (0.005) (0.000) (0.000) (0.026)
Credit 0.20 14.71 10.71 0.26 14.92 10.72 0.11 10.61 10.75 0.24 9.79 12.37
Spread (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Real M2 0.18 8.75 6.38 0.17 6.94 4.64 0.06 5.06 5.99 0.08 3.26 2.08
(0.000) (0.001) (0.000) (0.021) (0.000) (0.002) (0.011) (0.567)
SP500 0.09 6.72 5.83 0.16 5.55 3.81 0.09 6.47 5.50 0.15 5.83 2.57
(0.000) (0.003) (0.000) (0.072) (0.000) (0.005) (0.000) (0.350)
(b) h = 4
Real GDP IP Employment Unemployment Rate
Financial R 2 F QLR R 2 F QLR R 2 F QLR R2 F QLR
x / 'y x / 'y x / 'y x / 'y
Indicator
FedFunds 0.26 10.74 6.38 0.27 10.27 4.87 0.15 9.17 5.15 0.26 8.66 8.41
(0.000) (0.001) (0.000) (0.014) (0.000) (0.009) (0.000) (0.000)
Term 0.13 2.82 10.81 0.10 2.64 11.01 0.08 3.32 12.73 0.26 5.48 9.13
Spread (0.024) (0.000) (0.032) (0.000) (0.010) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Credit 0.12 10.17 11.56 0.21 12.21 21.85 0.11 8.28 16.41 0.24 10.27 19.56
Spread (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Real M2 0.23 7.78 9.96 0.23 6.76 6.05 0.10 4.63 8.53 0.15 2,84 2.64
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.002) (0.001) (0.000) (0.023) (0.326)
SP500 0.07 3.97 2.72 0.16 5.78 3.42 0.10 5.09 4.56 0.17 4.57 3.02
(0.003) (0.297) (0.000) (0.123) (0.000) (0.023) (0.001) (0.207)

Notes: Rx2/ y denotes the partial R2 for the lags of x conditional on the lags if y. F denotes the F-statistic
associated with the null hypothesis that all of the Ji coefficients are equal to zero, where the p-value is shown in
parentheses. QLR is the “sup-Chow” F-statistic testing for stability of the Ji coefficients (p-value in
parentheses). These test statistics using HAC covariance estimators with 2 lags for h = 2 and 8 lags for h = 4.
37

Table 3.2: Pseudo-out-of sample root mean square forecast errors
for AR and single indicator models.

ȋȌhαʹ
1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
1974.IV 1979.IV 1984. IV 1989. IV 1994. IV 1999. IV 2004. IV EOS
Root MSE for AR Forecasts
GDP 3.88 3.36 4.02 0.90 2.04 1.28 1.63 3.07
Employment 2.10 1.93 2.00 0.55 1.06 0.39 1.07 1.74
IP 8.70 5.09 6.73 2.43 3.26 2.21 3.51 6.73
Unemp Rate 0.75 0.69 0.76 0.23 0.38 0.21 0.35 0.64
Average 3.86 2.77 3.38 1.03 1.69 1.02 1.64 3.05
Relative Root MSE for Fed Funds Model Forecasts
GDP 1.03 1.00 0.84 1.51 1.19 1.03 1.21 1.15
IP 1.08 0.95 1.01 1.38 1.11 0.91 1.00 1.14
Employment 1.24 0.87 1.18 1.04 1.18 0.94 1.01 1.15
Unemp Rate 1.09 0.95 0.97 0.97 1.15 1.08 1.14 1.19
Average Relative Root MSE for Financial Indicator Model Forecasts
Fed Funds 1.11 0.94 1.00 1.22 1.16 0.99 1.09 1.16
Term Spread 0.86 0.94 0.96 1.71 1.13 1.21 1.07 1.08
Short-term Credit Spread 0.67 0.67 0.79 1.75 1.41 1.07 1.42 0.83
Real M2 0.65 0.96 0.99 1.67 1.27 1.13 1.39 1.19
SP500 0.74 1.06 0.88 1.88 1.00 1.18 0.87 0.84
Average 0.81 0.91 0.92 1.65 1.19 1.12 1.17 1.02

ȋȌhαͶ
1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
Root MSE for AR Forecasts
GDP 3.55 2.46 3.33 0.99 1.75 1.01 1.41 3.17
Employment 2.13 1.78 2.20 0.65 1.33 0.38 1.46 2.52
IP 8.19 4.13 5.64 2.33 2.50 2.16 3.54 6.87
Unemp Rate 1.58 1.08 1.56 0.51 0.75 0.32 0.69 1.63
Average 3.86 2.36 3.18 1.12 1.58 0.97 1.78 3.55
Financial Average Relative Root MSE
Indicator
Fed Funds 0.84 1.02 0.84 1.36 1.25 1.06 1.12 1.15
Term Spread 0.75 0.87 0.90 1.98 1.26 1.40 1.09 1.05
Short-term Credit Spread 0.71 0.78 0.80 1.43 1.33 0.90 1.40 0.89
Real M2 0.47 0.95 0.89 1.63 1.38 1.19 1.43 1.14
SP500 0.76 1.14 0.89 1.73 1.00 1.04 0.87 0.89
Average 0.71 0.95 0.86 1.63 1.24 1.12 1.18 1.02

Notes: The top panels of the tables show the root mean square forecast errors (RMSE) for the AR models
over the indicated sample periods for the real activity variable listed in the first column of the table. The
bottom panels shows the corresponding RMSE of the forecasts based on the financial indicators relative
to the AR forecasts. The four entries for each financial indicator correspond to the four real activity
variables (GDP, IP, Employment, Unemployment Rate). The last rows the table shows the average
relative RMSE across the real activity and financial indicators.
38

Table 3.3: Average Relative RMSE for Various FCI forecasting models

ȋȌhαʹ
FCI 1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
BLOOMBERG 0.94 0.92
CITI 0.93 0.78 0.88
DB (PC) 0.91 0.91
DB (FCI) . 0.90 0.87
GS 1.26 1.02 0.84 0.94
KCFSI 0.95 1.00
MA 1.17 0.96 0.95
OECD . 1.11
Average all FCIs 1.29 1.03 0.90 0.95

Average from 0.81 0.91 0.92 1.65 1.19 1.12 1.17 1.02
Table 3.2

ȋȌhαͶ
FCI 1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
BLOOMBERG . . 1.41 0.80
CITI . 1.02 0.75 0.83
DB (PC) . . 1.15 0.78
DB (FCI) . . 1.18 0.78
GS 1.28 1.03 0.81 0.91
KCFSI . . 0.81 0.84
MA . 1.29 0.92 0.83
OECD . . . 0.90
Average all FCIs 1.35 1.08 0.99 0.84

Average from
Table 3.2 0.71 0.95 0.86 1.63 1.24 1.12 1.18 1.02
Notes: GS refers to the Goldman Sachs FCI in first difference. DB (PC) and DB (FCI) refer to
the Deustche Bank principal component and FCI. See Table 3.2 for additional notes.
39

Table 4.1: Financial Indicators
Description NU T Source Start End R2 – Number of Factors /1

Interest Rates 0 1 2 3 4
1 10-Year Treasury Note Yield at Constant Maturity 2 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.15 0.30 0.40 0.43 0.46 -0.32
2 FedFunds/3monthTBill Spread X 1 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.42 0.63 0.63 0.68 0.69 -0.44
3 2YrT-note/3monthTbill Spread X 1 Federal Reserve Board 1976:3 2009:4 0.03 0.28 0.37 0.50 0.76 0.27
4 10YrT-note/3monthTbill Spread X 1 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.21 0.40 0.61 0.75 0.77 0.39
5 Baa/10yr T-note Spread 1 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.39 0.44 0.80 0.80 0.83 -0.08
6 High Yield / Baa Spread 1 Merrill Lynch/Federal Reserve 1997:1 2009:4 0.73 0.92 0.94 0.94 0.95 -0.17
Board
7 Auto finance company loan rate, new Car/Two-yr Treasury X 1 Federal Reserve Board 1976:3 2009:4 0.06 0.40 0.43 0.71 0.71 0.46
Spread
8 30-yr Conventional mortgage/ 10yrTBond Spread 1 Federal Reserve Board 1971:2 2009:4 0.23 0.35 0.45 0.57 0.68 -0.27
9 Jumbo/30yr Conventional Spread X 1 Deutsche Bank 1998:3 2009:4 0.60 0.93 0.94 0.95 0.96 -0.39
10 TED Spread (Using Constant Maturity T-bill) 1 Federal Reserve Board 1981:4 2009:4 0.32 0.73 0.77 0.77 0.83 -0.62
11 3-month LIBOR/OIS 1 Bloomberg/Federal Reserve 2002:1 2009:4 0.71 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.98 -0.33
Board
12 Bank rate on new Car Loans, 48-month/Two-year Treasury X 1 Wall Street Journal/Federal 1976:3 2009:4 0.37 0.58 0.81 0.79 0.88 0.34
Spread Reserve Board
13 Bank rate on Personal Loans, 24-month/Two-year Treasury X 1 Federal Reserve Board 1976:3 2009:4 0.72 0.81 0.85 0.84 0.93 0.20
Spread
14 Citigroup Bond Yields:Credit {Corp} Spread/Finance X 1 Citi 1980:1 2009:4 0.28 0.71 0.75 0.75 0.78 -0.61
15 Banks CDS Spread X 1 Deutsche Bank 2004:4 2009:4 0.88 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.99 -0.10
Prices
16 Real Broad Trade-Weighted Exchange Value of the US$ 5 Federal Reserve Board 1973:2 2009:4 0.02 0.20 0.22 0.22 0.30 -0.26
17 Wilshire 5000 5 Wilshire Associates 1971:2 2009:4 0.09 0.37 0.45 0.45 0.48 0.50
18 Financial Market Cap (percent of S&P 500) X 5 Standard and Poor’s 1976:4 2009:4 0.04 0.37 0.42 0.42 0.39 0.43
19 Loan Performance National House Price Index (SA) X 5 FirstAmerican Core Logic 1976:2 2009:4 0.29 0.58 0.62 0.68 0.68 0.46
20 Price of Oil Relative to 2Year MA (PPI Crude Oil) X 4 Wall Street Journal 1970:2 2009:4 0.13 0.17 0.26 0.27 0.24 -0.14
Quantities
21 Bank Credit: All Commercial Banks (SA) X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.28 0.32 0.33 0.55 0.59 0.01
22 Commercial Paper Outstanding:All Issuers (SA) X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.32 0.39 0.53 0.57 0.73 -0.18
23 Commercial Paper Issuance (Relative to 12Month MA) 1 Federal Reserve Board 2002:1 2009:4 0.84 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 -0.07
24 ABS Issuance (Relative to 12Month MA) 1 Bloomberg 1997:1 2009:4 0.21 0.87 0.86 0.86 0.96 0.64
25 CMBS Issuance (Alert Database) (Relative to 12Month MA) 1 Deutsche Bank 1992:1 2009:4 0.35 0.73 0.74 0.75 0.78 0.18
26 Money Stock:MZM {Zero Maturity} (SA) 5 Federal Reserve Bank of St. 1974:2 2009:4 0.13 0.28 0.47 0.55 0.52 0.16
Louis
27 State & local Government:Liability:Credit Market X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.04 0.13 0.21 0.55 0.56 0.19
Instruments (SA)
28 Nonfederal Sectors:Liability:Credit Market Debt X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.47 0.50 0.50 0.88 0.89 0.04
Outstanding (SA)
29 Private Nonfinancial Debt, SA X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1970:2 2009:4 0.52 0.54 0.55 0.85 0.86 0.00
30 Total Finance:Liabilities:Security RPs (NSA) X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1974:2 2009:3 0.07 0.34 0.44 0.45 0.50 0.41
31 ABS Issuers:Assets; Consumer Credit (NSA) X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1992:2 2009:3 0.17 0.67 0.76 0.77 0.82 0.23
32 ABS Issuers:Asset; Mortgages on 1-4 Family Structures X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1988:2 2009:4 0.21 0.70 0.73 0.73 0.87 0.55
ͶͲ
(NSA)
33 ABS Issuers:Asset; Commercial Mortgages (NSA) X 5 Federal Reserve Board 1993:2 2009:4 0.28 0.73 0.73 0.77 0.88 0.21
34 Total Non-monrtgage ABS Issuance (NSA) Relative to 4Q 1 Deutsche Bank 1994:1 2009:4 0.22 0.86 0.86 0.86 0.94 0.73
MA)
Surveys
35 NFIB:%Reporting that Credit Was Harder to Get Last Time, X 1 National Federation of 1986:1 2009:4 0.42 0.68 0.68 0.85 0.86 -0.14
Net (SA) Independent Business
36 Michigan Survey:Interest Rates/Credit Reason Good/Bad X 1 University of Michigan 1978:1 2009:4 0.68 0.81 0.82 0.84 0.91 -0.28
Conditions for Buying Large HH Goods Spread
37 Michigan Survey:Interest Rates/Credit Reason for Good/Bad X 1 University of Michigan 1980:2 2009:4 0.70 0.85 0.87 0.86 0.93 -0.33
Conditions for Buying Houses Spread
38 Michigan Survey:Interest Rates/Credit Reason for Good Less X 1 University of Michigan 1978:1 2009:4 0.56 0.74 0.79 0.83 0.89 -0.34
Bad Conditions for Buying Autos Spread
39 FRB Sr. Of. Banks Tightening C&I Loans to Large Firms (%) X 1 University of Michigan 1990:2 2009:4 0.45 0.82 0.83 0.83 0.88 -0.47
40 FRB Sr. Of.:Banks Tightening C&I Loans to Small Firms (%) X 1 University of Michigan 1990:2 2009:4 0.54 0.87 0.87 0.87 0.91 -0.48
41 FRB Sr. Of.:Banks Willingness to Lend to Consumers (%) X 1 University of Michigan 1970:2 2009:4 0.24 0.61 0.63 0.65 0.68 0.59
nd
2 Moments
42 Correlation of Returns on Equities and Treasuries 1 Authors’ calculations based 1976:3 2009:4 0.18 0.39 0.47 0.50 0.70 0.26
on Standard and Poor’s
and US Treasury data
43 Idiosyncratic Bank Stock Volatility 1 Goldman Sachs 1973:1 2009:4 0.20 0.52 0.67 0.67 0.75 -0.54
44 Monthly Average VIX 1 Chicago Options Exchange 1986:1 2009:4 0.24 0.74 0.80 0.80 0.82 -0.65
2
Average R 0.30 0.42 0.50 0.59 0.66

Notes: In the column labeled NU, an “X” denotes variable was not used in any of the alternative FCIs we have surveyed. The column
labeled T shows the transformation (1=level, 2=first difference, 4 = logarithm, 5 = first difference of logarithm). The start and end dates
indicate the periods the series was used in to estimate the factors. The five columns labeled R2 show the R2 for model including A(L)Y,
and then sequentially adding 0, 1, and 4 factors. The column labeled /1 shows the estimated value of / for the single factor model.
Ͷͳ

Figure 4.1: Number of Financial Indicators by Date

No. of indicators No. of indicators
45 45
40 40
35 35
30 30
25 25
20 20
15 15
10 10
5 5
0 0
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Ͷʹ
Figure 5.1: New FCI: First Principal Component of 44 Financial Indicators
Index* Index*
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
-1 -1
-2 -2
-3 -3
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
* Index measured in terms of number of standard deviations away from historical mean.
Ͷ͵
Table 5.1: Relative RMSE for Forecasting Models Using Financial Indicator Factors
(a) h = 2
FCI 1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
1 PC 0.90 1.50 0.88 1.71 0.89 0.64
2 PCs 0.82 1.80 1.00 2.29 0.97 0.66
3 PCs 0.88 1.54 1.03 2.14 0.89 0.69
Average 0.87 1.61 0.97 2.05 0.92 0.66
AR Model RMSE 3.86 2.77 3.38 1.03 1.69 1.02 1.64 3.05
Avg (Tab 3.2)
SP500 (Tab. 3.2) 0.74 1.06 0.88 1.88 1.00 1.18 0.87 0.84
KCFSI (Tab. 3.3) 0.95 1.00
Avg (Tab. 3.2) 0.81 0.91 0.92 1.65 1.19 1.12 1.17 1.02
Avg (Tab. 3.3) 1.29 1.03 0.90 0.95
(b) h = 4
FCI 1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
1 PC 1.08 1.40 0.81 1.93 0.77 0.60
2 PCs 0.96 1.51 0.97 3.40 0.88 0.64
3 PCs 0.84 1.65 1.08 3.41 0.75 0.69
Average 0.96 1.52 0.95 2.91 0.80 0.64
AR Model RMSE 3.86 2.36 3.18 1.12 1.58 0.97 1.78 3.55
Avg (Tab 3.2)
SP500 (Tab. 3.2) 0.76 1.14 0.89 1.73 1.00 1.04 0.87 0.89
KCFSI (Tab. 3.3) 0.81 0.84
Avg (Tab. 3.2) 0.71 0.95 0.86 1.63 1.24 1.12 1.18 1.02
Avg (Tab. 3.3) 1.35 1.08 0.99 0.84

ͶͶ
Figure 5.2: Real GDP Growth: Forecast using Autoregressive and New FCI Models (h=2)*

Q/Q% AR Actual Q/Q% AR
10 Autoregressive 10
8 New FCI 8
6 6
4 4
2 2
0 0
-2 -2
-4 -4
-6 -6
-8 -8
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
* 2 quarters horizon.

Ͷͷ
Figure 5.3 a Real GDP Growth: Forecast using SP500 and New FCI (h =2)*
Q/Q% AR Actual Q/Q% AR

8 S&P 500 8
New FCI
6 6
4 4
2 2
0 0
-2 -2
-4 -4
-6 -6
-8 -8
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
* 2 quarters horizon.

Figure 5.3 b. Real GDP Growth: Forecast using Alternative FCIs (h =2)*
Q/Q% AR Q/Q% AR
8 8
6 6
4 4
2 2
0 0
Actual
-2 CITI -2
DB (PC)
-4 -4
GS (FD)
-6 KCSFI -6
Macroadvisers
-8 -8
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Ͷ͸
Table 5.2: Relative RMSE for Subsets of Financial Indicators
(a) h = 2
Subset 1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
New FCI 0.90 1.50 0.88 1.71 0.89 0.64
Balanced Panel 0.83 1.35 0.90 2.26 0.89 0.75
Price 2.31 1.13 1.53 0.82 0.80

Quantity . . . . 1.03
Surveys . . . 1.17 0.91
Liquidity 1.43 0.89 1.81 0.84 0.98
Credit . 1.42 1.11 0.96 0.90
Not purged of 0.73 1.37 1.08 0.97 1.09 0.85

either macro
influence or fed
funds
Purged of both 1.04 1.55 0.95 1.41 0.92 0.72
macro influence
and fed funds
(b) h = 4
Subset 1970.I - 1975.I - 1980.I - 1985.I - 1990.I - 1995.I - 2000.I - 2005.I -
New FCI 1.08 1.40 0.81 1.93 0.77 0.60
Balanced Panel 0.84 1.22 0.87 3.08 0.73 0.67
Price 0.97 1.04 1.61 0.75 0.72

Quantity . . . . 0.83
Surveys . . . 1.62 0.77
Liquidity 0.85 0.72 2.95 0.75 0.87
Credit . 1.50 1.19 0.92 0.89
Not purged of 0.89 1.28 1.03 0.84 1.07 0.89

either macro
influence or fed
funds
Purged of both 1.22 1.26 0.87 1.34 0.85 0.71

macro influence
and fed funds
Ͷ͹

Figure 5.4 Decomposition of FCI
Index* Index* Index* Index*

4 4
4 FCI 4 FCI
3 Prices 3
Interest rates
3 3
2 2
2 2
1 1
1 1
0 0
0 0
-1 -1
-1 -1
-2 -2 -2 -2
-3 -3 -3 -3
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
* Index measured in terms of number of standard deviations away from historical mean. * Index measured in terms of number of standard deviations away from historical mean.
Index* Index* Index* Index*

4 FCI 4 4 4
FCI Surveys
3 Quantities 3 3 3
2 2 2 2
1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0
-1 -1 -1 -1
-2 -2 -2 -2
-3 -3 -3 -3
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
* Index measured in terms of number of standard deviations away from historical mean. * Index measured in terms of number of standard deviations away from historical mean.
Index*
4
Index*
4

FCI
3 3
2nd moments
2 2
1 1
0 0
-1 -1
-2 -2
-3 -3
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Ͷͺ
Figure 5.5: FCI with and without purging of business cycle

Index* Index*
4 With A(L)Y adjustment 4
Without A(L)Y adjustment
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
-1 -1
-2 -2
-3 -3
-4 -4
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Figure 5.6: FCI and FCI purged of Fed Funds Shocks
Index* Benchmark Index*
4 4
Adding Fed Funds to Y
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
-1 -1
-2 -2
-3 -3
-4 -4
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Ͷͻ
Figure 5.7: Federal Funds and FCI During Periods of Fed Policy Easing and Tightening*
Index** P ercent
10 20
8 15
F C I(ls )
10
6 E ffectivefedfunds rate(rs )
5
4
0
2
Ͳ5
0
Ͳ10
Ͳ2 Ͳ15
Ͳ4 Ͳ20
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
*S hadedareas areeas ingcycles ,nons hadedareas aretighteningcycles .
**Indexmeas uredinterms ofnumberofs tandarddeviations awayfromhis toricalmean.

ͷͲ
Figure 5.8: New FCI During Periods of Fed Policy Tightening
C hangefromquarterpriorto C hangefromquarterpriorto
initialtightening initialtightening
Average,allexcept2004
2 2
2004
Maximum,allexcept2004
1 Minimum,allexcept2004 1
0 0
Ͳ1 Ͳ1
Ͳ2 Ͳ2
Ͳ3 Ͳ3
Ͳ4 Ͳ4
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Q uarters ofF edtightening

ͷͳ
Figure 5.9: New FCI During Periods of Fed Policy Easing

C hangefromquarter C hangefromquarter
priortoinitialeas ing priortoinitialeas ing
Average,allexcept2007
5 2007 5
Maximum,allexcept2007
4 Minimum,allexcept2007 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
Ͳ1 Ͳ1
Ͳ2 Ͳ2
Ͳ3 Ͳ3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Q uarters ofF edeas ing
ͷʹ
Figure 5.10: Changes in Financial Conditions from 2009Q2 to 2009Q4
Index* Index*
Unpurged Purged
0.5 0.5
0.0 0.0
-0.5 -0.5
-1.0 -1.0
-1.5 -1.5
-2.0 -2.0
Total Interest Asset Quantities Surveys 2nd
Rates Prices Moments

ͷ͵
Table 5.3: Top contributors to decline in new FCI in 2009H2
Measured in standard deviations from historical mean

Difference of
FCI (purged) FCI (non purged) FCI (purged) - FCI (non-purged)
ABS Issuance -0.64 -0.20 -0.44
Financial Market Cap -0.24 -0.03 -0.20
Total Finance: Liabilities: Security RPs -0.19 -0.01 -0.18
Wilshire 5000 -0.11 -0.02 -0.09
FRB Sr. Of.: Banks Tightening C&I Loans to Small Firms -0.09 0.07 -0.16
FRB Sr. Of. Banks Tightening C&I Loans to Large Firms -0.09 0.06 -0.15
Loan Performance National House Price Index -0.08 0.00 -0.08
FRB Sr. Of.: Banks Willingness to Lend to Consumers -0.08 0.01 -0.09
Commercial Paper Outstanding: All Issuers -0.08 -0.04 -0.04
Sum total -1.60 -0.17 -1.43
Figure 5.11: ABS issuance still subdued
ͷͶ

Financial Conditions Indexes: A Fresh Look After The Financial Crisis

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Financial Conditions Indexes: A Fresh Look after the Financial Crisis*

This Draft: February 22, 2010

2. THE WHYS AND HOWS OF FINANCIAL CONDITIONS INDEXES

2.1 Why Financial Conditions Matter

The second category – or non-neoclassical set – of transmission channels includes virtually

2.2 Which Variables to Include in an FCI

2.3 How FCIs Have Been Constructed in Practice

Citi Financial Conditions Index

Deutsche Bank Financial Conditions Index

Goldman Sachs Financial Conditions Index

Macroeconomic Advisers Monetary and Financial Conditions Index

OECD Financial Conditions Index

3. TESTING THE PREDICTIVE POWER OF FINANCIAL CONDITIONS

3.1 Prediction Tests with Single-Variable Financial Indicators.

To establish a baseline for judging performance, we begin by assessing the predictive

The in-sample regression specification we employed was:

Several notable patterns emerge in the results:

x First, in the benchmark autoregressive models, prediction errors dropped substantially

3.2 Prediction Tests with Financial Conditions Indexes.

The key findings in Table 3.3 can be summarized as follows:

x Pooling of information appears to improve the predictive ability of financial indicators, at

4.1 Selection of Financial Variables

4.2 Historical Coverage

4.3 Econometric Approach

Xit = Ai(L)Yt + vit (2)

vit = OiƍFt + uit. (3)

panel nature of our dataset is accommodated by summing over non-missing observations.14,15,16

5. EVALUATION OF THE NEW FINANCIAL CONDITIONS INDEX

The key results can be summarized as follows:

5.2 Testing the new FCI’s enhancements of the existing technology

5.3 Possible sources of instability

5.4 What our FCI tells us about the period ahead.

__________ (2008), “Large Dimensional Factor Analysis,” Foundations and Trends in

Rosenberg, M. (December 3, 2009), “Financial Conditions Watch,” Bloomberg.

___________ (2006), “Forecasting with Many Predictors,” ch. 6 in Handbook of Economic

___________ (2007), Introduction to Econometrics, Second Edition, Pearson, Addison-Wesley:

Zarnowitz, V. (1992). “Composite Indexes of Leading, Coincident, and Lagging Indicators,” in

Deutsche Goldman Macro

Financial Condition Index Methodology

Bloomberg Weighted average of current financial variable values: Equal

Citi Weighted average of financial variable values: Weights

Deutsche Bank Principal components and weighted average of current

Goldman Sachs Weighted average of current financial variables: Weights

Macroeconomic Advisers Weighted average of current and lagged variables: Weights

OECD Weighted average of current financial variables: Weights

Average 0.81 0.91 0.92 1.65 1.19 1.12 1.17 1.02

Average 0.71 0.95 0.86 1.63 1.24 1.12 1.18 1.02

Average all FCIs 1.29 1.03 0.90 0.95

Average all FCIs 1.35 1.08 0.99 0.84

Description NU T Source Start End R2 – Number of Factors /1

Q/Q% AR Actual Q/Q% AR

Balanced Panel 0.83 1.35 0.90 2.26 0.89 0.75

Price 2.31 1.13 1.53 0.82 0.80

Not purged of 0.73 1.37 1.08 0.97 1.09 0.85

Balanced Panel 0.84 1.22 0.87 3.08 0.73 0.67

Price 0.97 1.04 1.61 0.75 0.72

Not purged of 0.89 1.28 1.03 0.84 1.07 0.89

Purged of both 1.22 1.26 0.87 1.34 0.85 0.71

Figure 5.4 Decomposition of FCI

The second category – or non-neoclassical set – of transmission channels includes virtually

__________ (2008), “Large Dimensional Factor Analysis,” Foundations and Trends in

Rosenberg, M. (December 3, 2009), “Financial Conditions Watch,” Bloomberg.

___________ (2006), “Forecasting with Many Predictors,” ch. 6 in Handbook of Economic

Zarnowitz, V. (1992). “Composite Indexes of Leading, Coincident, and Lagging Indicators,” in