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LEI is pointing to a disappointing end to 2018

CANADA POISED FOR A SLUGGISH END TO 2018: MLI'S LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATOR


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By —— Bio and Archives September 11, 2018

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Leading Economic Indicator OTTAWA, ON--The Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Leading Economic Indicator (LEI), a tool designed to predict changes in the Canadian business cycle, increased by 0.1 percent in July. This represents a continuation of the slow growth that it has posted over the last four months. While six of the ten components of the LEI underwent relatively marginal changes, the overall weakness in the index was primarily driven by declines in the housing and consumer confidence components.
According to LEI author and MLI Munk Senior Fellow Philip Cross, the declines on these two components are significant because they represent “the sectors which led higher growth late in 2017.” These components reflect trends noted early this year, including steadily eroding consumer sentiment and a housing index which dropped for much of this year, excluding a 0.5 percent rebound in June. Despite general sluggishness, there was some growth in July concentrated in commodity prices and the stock market. That being said, Cross says that the LEI is pointing to a disappointing end to 2018. “Overall, the slow growth of the leading index suggests that the second-quarter gain in real GDP will not continue in the second half of the year.” To learn more about the leading economic indicator, watch.


For more information, media are invited to contact: Brett Byers-Lane, Communications and Digital Media Manager brett.byers-lane@macdonaldlaurier.ca



Macdonald Laurier Institute -- Bio and Archives | Comments

Canada’s only truly national public policy think tank based in Ottawa. MLI is rigorously independent and non-partisan, as symbolized by its name. Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier were two outstanding and long-serving former prime ministers who represent the best of Canada’s distinguished political tradition. A Tory and a Grit, an English-speaker and a French-speaker, each of them championed the values that led to the creation of Canada and its emergence as one of the world’s leading democracies and a place where people may live in peace and freedom under the rule of law.


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