Fed Talk: A New SORCE: Timely Insights into the Region's Economy

At the Cleveland Fed, we monitor emerging trends by surveying regional business and community leaders about economic conditions in our region. Through these surveys, the businesses share the economic conditions that they face. This can provide insights in advance of other published macroeconomic indicators.

Every six weeks, our regional experts collect and analyze insights from surveys completed by business and community leaders around the Fourth District. The Fourth District is the region served by the Cleveland Fed. It includes Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

Through the Survey of Regional Conditions and Expectations (SORCE) indexes, we are now sharing quantitative survey results with the public. The SORCE indexes serve as timely indicators of economic activity in the Fourth District. These indexes supplement the Beige Book, which provides a summary of reports from Fourth District firms on economic conditions.

In this Fed Talk, our speakers will discuss:

• The new SORCE indexes and how businesses can use these data
• How the Cleveland Fed interacts with businesses in our region
• How we collect economic data by surveying regional businesses
• The ways we use these survey data to inform ourselves and the public about economic trends
• How businesses can get involved and respond to the survey

Speakers

• Russell Mills, Regional Executive, Pittsburgh Branch, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
• Brooke Dirtzu, Economic Analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
• Jayme Gerring, Research Analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Moderator

• Stephan Whitaker, Senior Policy Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland