Glossary
Macro terms, data terms, and platform terms in one place
Search matches term names, aliases, categories, and definitions.
Platform-specific workflow terms are marked separately from standard macro vocabulary.
Macro foundations
The total demand for goods and services in the economy at a given overall price level.
The total amount of goods and services firms are willing to produce at a given overall price level.
The recurring pattern of expansion, slowdown, recession, and recovery in overall economic activity.
A phase of the cycle when output, income, and employment are generally rising.
A sharp slowdown or recession that follows a tightening cycle or other macro adjustment.
The horizon where capacity, productivity, demographics, and institutions matter more than short-run frictions.
The study of economy-wide output, inflation, employment, finance, policy, and how shocks move through them together.
A variable measured in current prices, without adjusting for inflation.
The difference between actual output and an estimate of potential output.
The level of output the economy can sustain without persistent inflation pressure.
Production, spending, hiring, income, and capacity outside the narrower financial-market layer.
A variable adjusted for inflation so it reflects quantities or purchasing power more clearly.
A broad decline in economic activity that usually shows up in output, employment, income, and spending.
A change in conditions, policy, expectations, or prices that pushes the economy away from its prior path.
The horizon where adjustment frictions, policy timing, and demand conditions can move the economy away from its longer-run path.
A slowdown that cools inflation or excess demand without tipping the economy into a deep recession.
The chain through which a shock or policy move spreads into output, prices, jobs, credit, and expectations.
Growth and output
New business filings that can act as an early read on entrepreneurial activity and future business formation.
The share of productive capacity currently being used, often watched as a pressure or slowdown signal.
The process of building up machines, structures, software, and other productive assets over time.
Growth in capital per worker, which can raise labor productivity and output.
Spending on private and public construction projects, often used as a read on building activity and demand.
A survey-based read on how households feel about current conditions and the outlook.
Household spending on goods and services.
Spending that goes to final users rather than into inventories or intermediate production.
Income earned from production, including wages, profits, rent, and taxes less subsidies.
The total value of goods and services produced within a country over a period of time.
The count of new privately owned housing units that begin construction, often used as a cyclical housing read.
An index tracking output in manufacturing, mining, and utilities.
The part of the business cycle shaped by stock-building and stock-drawdown decisions by firms.
Spending on productive capital, structures, equipment, software, or inventories.
A series that tends to move ahead of the broader economy and can hint at a coming turn in the cycle.
The accounting framework that organizes GDP, income, spending, saving, and related macro aggregates.
Exports minus imports, the external demand contribution inside GDP.
GDP measured at current prices, before adjusting for inflation.
The economy's longer-run growth pace once temporary cyclical forces are stripped away.
How much output can be produced from a given mix of labor, capital, and know-how.
GDP adjusted for inflation so it tracks changes in real output more clearly.
A measure of spending at retail businesses, often used as a timely read on household demand.
The part of output growth not directly explained by measured labor and capital inputs.
The slower-moving pace of expansion consistent with longer-run productivity and labor-force fundamentals.
Prices and inflation
A market-implied inflation measure inferred from the gap between nominal Treasury yields and inflation-protected yields.
A BLS price index tracking the cost of a fixed basket of consumer goods and services.
An inflation measure that strips out more volatile components to show the underlying trend.
The Federal Reserve's preferred broad core inflation measure, built from the PCE price index excluding food and energy.
An outright decline in the general price level.
Inflation pressure that emerges when demand runs ahead of the economy's ability to supply goods and services.
A slowdown in the rate of inflation, not outright falling prices.
Inflation measured using the full price index, including volatile categories such as food and energy.
A sustained rise in the overall price level.
What households, firms, and markets think future inflation will be, which can influence current pricing and wage setting.
Slow adjustment in prices or wages that lets shocks have real short-run effects.
A BEA price index built from household consumption in the national accounts, with weights that change over time.
A framework linking inflation pressure to slack, labor-market tightness, or the output gap.
A BLS price index tracking prices received by producers.
A price move concentrated in one part of the economy, such as energy, food, or shipping, rather than a broad inflation shift.
A period when inflation stays elevated while growth weakens and labor-market conditions soften.
A disruption to production costs, availability, or capacity that changes prices and output together.
Labor market
A widely watched wage measure from the monthly employment report.
The share of the population that is employed.
A labor input measure that can move before or alongside payroll counts.
New filings for unemployment insurance. Weekly, so it moves faster than most labor data.
Available positions firms are actively trying to fill, often read as a labor-demand signal.
The willingness of firms to hire workers at current wages and expected sales conditions.
The share of the population that is working or actively looking for work.
An estimate of the unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation.
The monthly count of jobs on employer payrolls outside the farm sector.
The share of workers voluntarily leaving jobs, often used as a read on labor-market confidence and tightness.
Unused capacity in the labor market, such as unemployment, underemployment, or weak participation.
Workers employed less than they want, or in positions that do not fully use their labor.
The share of the labor force that is jobless and actively seeking work.
Open roles firms are trying to fill.
The pace at which wages are rising over time.
Policy and finance
The stock of assets, liabilities, and net worth that shapes how exposed a borrower, lender, firm, or household is to stress.
The gap between government revenue and spending over a period, often discussed as a deficit or surplus.
Assets pledged against borrowing; when collateral values fall, financing can tighten quickly.
Policy that leans against the cycle by supporting activity in downturns or cooling it in booms.
The extra yield investors demand for bearing default or funding risk over a safer benchmark.
A decline in private spending or investment associated with stronger government borrowing or demand pressure.
The price of one currency in terms of another currency.
The overnight policy rate targeted by the Federal Reserve.
A broad read on rates, spreads, asset prices, lending conditions, and risk appetite.
The amount total output changes after government spending or taxes change.
Government spending and taxation decisions that affect demand, incentives, and public borrowing.
Central-bank communication about the future path of policy meant to influence current financial conditions.
The extent to which borrowing finances assets or spending.
How easily assets can be traded or financing can be obtained without large price disruption.
Central-bank actions that influence interest rates, financial conditions, and the broader economy.
The willingness of investors or lenders to take on risk.
A simple policy rule that links the interest-rate response to inflation and the output gap.
The extra yield investors require for holding longer-term bonds over expected short rates.
The relationship between interest rates and maturity across Treasury securities.
Data and releases
Converting a monthly or quarterly pace into an annual rate so it is easier to compare with other annualized series.
The reference year used to anchor an index or real-value calculation.
How often a series is observed, such as daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual.
A normalized level series built around a chosen base period rather than a direct dollar or quantity level.
The change from one month to the next.
One dated value inside a time series.
The quarterly change expressed at an annual rate.
A schedule of upcoming economic releases and events.
The scheduled publication date and time for an economic release.
The period around a scheduled release when the timing of fresh data matters most for interpretation and nowcasting.
A change to previously published data after new information or updated methods arrive.
A statistical adjustment that removes regular calendar patterns so the underlying trend is easier to see.
A seasonally adjusted flow or pace expressed as if that rate continued for a full year.
A sequence of observations over time for one variable.
A snapshot of what the data looked like at a particular point in time, including the revisions known then.
The change from the same period one year earlier.
Models and projections
A simulation built from many interacting agents whose local rules generate macro outcomes.
A time-series forecasting family built around autoregressive, differencing, and moving-average components.
A central forecast path built from current data and model assumptions before extra scenarios are applied.
A simple comparison model used to judge whether a more complex model is actually adding value.
Setting model parameters to reference values or stylized facts rather than estimating every one directly from data.
A long-run relationship that ties nonstationary series together even when they move separately in the short run.
A model-based path showing what the economy might have looked like under different shocks, rules, or assumptions.
A structural macro model with explicit behavior, equilibrium conditions, shocks, and policy rules.
A forecasting family that models level, trend, and seasonal structure directly.
A period kept out of the fit so forecast performance can be checked on data the model did not train on.
The path a model variable follows after a particular shock.
A forecast built from a small system of variables that move together and help explain one another.
A regime model that allows the economy to move between different states with transition probabilities.
A DSGE family that brings sticky prices, policy rules, and expectations into one structural system.
Estimating the current state of the economy before official releases are complete.
A curated set of indicators admitted into a model because each series carries a clear role in the structural or empirical read.
A forecast built around one target series, its own history, and direct benchmarks.
A parameter belief or reference distribution specified before the estimation step updates it with data.
A probability model often used for recession-risk or state-transition classification.
A DSGE benchmark that emphasizes real shocks, flexible prices, and intertemporal adjustment.
A change in the underlying behavior of the economy or series, such as moving from expansion to recession.
An explicit alternative path created by changing assumptions, shocks, or policy settings.
A move into a different macro state, such as a recession-risk regime or a more persistent inflation regime.
The reference equilibrium or benchmark level around which many macro models are organized.
A multivariate forecasting model in which each variable depends on its own past and the past of the other variables.
A multivariate model for cointegrated series that keeps short-run changes tied to a long-run equilibrium.
Site and workflow
A saved board that brings chosen indicators and widgets into one recurring monitoring view.
The search layer that reaches beyond the Local Library into connected provider universes such as FRED.
The curated indicator layer already inside the project and available for fast repeat use.
Browser-based saving for dashboards and certain workflow state, without account sync.
The route that ties turning points, debates, and episodes to the macro path over time.
The top-level macro route that gathers the main lenses, questions, and system views into one entry page.
A news grouping organized around one macro question or narrative tension rather than a simple feed order.
A route where a model is configured, run, and interpreted inside one page or lab.
A prebuilt dashboard starting point that can be opened and then adapted to a specific question.
A saved provider selection that can be reviewed later before it is added to the tracked library.
A dashboard layout structure with slot rules that shape which widget types and indicator combinations fit cleanly.
The checked-in library of indicator definitions that have passed review and are available on the site.
A dashboard block such as a headline metric, time-series chart, comparison tile, or table.
Institutions and sources
The U.S. statistical agency responsible for GDP, income, spending, and many national accounts measures.
The U.S. statistical agency responsible for CPI, payrolls, unemployment, producer prices, and related labor-market data.
The U.S. statistical agency that publishes data on population, housing, construction, retail trade, and business formation, among other topics.
The U.S. agency that publishes official energy production, consumption, and pricing data.
The Federal Reserve committee that sets the broad stance of U.S. monetary policy.
The U.S. central bank system responsible for monetary policy, financial stability, and related economic data releases.
A St. Louis Fed service that organizes economic time series and release metadata from many public sources.
The application interface that allows software to search FRED series, release dates, and observations programmatically.
The Federal Reserve's statistical release for foreign exchange rates and selected international interest rates.
The U.S. Treasury Department and its related yield, debt, and financing data releases used across macro and market work.
