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Material: Leading Economic Indicators
Submitted by: Cathy Swift on Apr 11, 2000
Date Last Modified: May 16, 2000
Title: Predicting the Course of the Nation's Economy
Description: Students will be accessing The Conference Board Business Cycle Indicator page to find out what the Leading Economic Indicators are. They will then use other Internet resources to determine data on the LEIs, and will use that data to predict the economy for the next six months.
Type of Task: Individual, Student-centered, Supplemental activity, Unsupervised
Time Required One hour
Topics: Economics
Course: Introduction to Business; Economics
Audience: College General Ed
Categories:
Prerequisites Skills: Should have some general knowledge of what is meant by Leading Economic Indicators and what they are used for.
Learning Objectives: 1. Students will be learn to identify, define, and explain what the Leading Economic Indicators are.
2. Students will collect data of the LEIs over the last 6 months and create graphs plotting the data.
3. Students will learn to analyze and evaluate the data collected in order to predict economic trends for the next 6 months period.
Text of Learning Exercise: A. Go to The Conference Board Business Cycle Indicator page. From this web page, you should be able to identify, define and explain what the ten leading economic indicators are.


1. Make a list of the ten LEI's.


2. After each LEI, write a brief summary which defines what it is and its importance.



B. Now go to some of the following Internet sites:


a. The Dismal Scientist: www.dismal.com


b. USA Today: www.usatoday.com/money/economy/econ0001.htm


c. First Union Economic Indicators: www.firstunion.com/library/econews/indicator.html



C. From these sites, gather information for each of the LEIs for the last six (6) months. Present this data in a chart form, showing the date for each of the six months. Make a graph of the data presented.




D. Based on the evaluation of the data collected, predict the course of the nation's
economy for the next six (6) months. Explain and defend your prediction..

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