Weather adjusting economic data

• Autores: Michael Boldin, Jonathan H. Wright
• Localización: Brookings papers on economic activity, ISSN 0007-2303, Nº. 2, 2015
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This paper proposes and implements a statistical methodology for adjusting employment data for the effects of deviations in weather from seasonal norms. This is distinct from seasonal adjustment, which only controls for the normal variation in weather across the year. We simultaneously control for both of these effects by integrating a weather adjustment step in the seasonal adjust- ment process. We use several indicators of weather, including temperature and snowfall. We find that weather effects can be important, shifting the monthly payrolls change number by more than 100,000 in either direction. The effects are largest in the winter and early spring months and in the construction sector. A similar methodology is constructed and applied to NIPA data, although the manner in which NIPA data are reported makes it impossible fully to integrate weather and seasonal adjustments.