Bank Debits Research Articles

Business Volumes During Periods of Decline and Recovery

QNLY a few statistical series measuring the volume of business are available for a long enough period to make possible satisfactory comparisons of a considerable number of past cycles with the present. Monthly (or at least quarterly) figures are necessary, and most of the prewar statistics relating to business volumes are on an annual basis. For the measurement of physical volumes, a satisfactory series for pigiron output has been developed by Professor Warren M. Persons, going back as far as I877 in quarterly form, and to I884 in monthly form.' For the measurement of dollar volumes there is the series for bank clearings in seven selected cities outside New York City compiled by Doctor Edwin Frickey, and published in this REvIEw for May and August I930. These figures go back, on a monthly basis, to i875. For the postwar period, bank debits of certain selected cities (again excluding New York, and also certain other cities especially affected by speculative transactions) are used to measure the dollar volume of business. Fluctuations in bank debits paralleled very closely those in the clearing figures for the post-war years, and the differences between the two series are probably less than the inaccuracies unavoidable in comparisons of such series over a long interval of time. This discussion will give chief attention to the clearings or debits figures. Such statistics are, of course, only one way of measuring fluctuations in business activity; but they have the advantage of covering a great variety of payments and are expressed in dollars, in which we are accustomed to reckon business transactions. On the following page, there is presented a chart of the adjusted figures for clearings or debits during periods of business decline and recovery.2 The low points of the indexes have been plotted on the middle line of the chart; when more than one low point appears, the last low point falls on the middle line. The period of d cline (except for I875-79) is from the last significant high point of the preceding period of activity to the low point; the period of recovery, from the low point to normal (in most instances). In i888, and again in I89I, when the fluctuations were mostly or entirely above normal, six months of recovery are shown. In I895, normal wa not reached, though closely approached, on the recovery. The pre-war figures are corrected for trend (as well as seasonal movements). Consideration is now being given to the determination of a trend line (or normal) for the past few years. Until such a normal has been satisfactorily ascertained, it is necessary to show I929-30 without correction for trend. The years I92-22 are likewise shown without such correction. The application of trends would tend to increase the amount of declines, and decrease the amount of advances; but over the short periods for which the figures are shown, such periods embracing wide fluctuations, the correction for trend would form a small proportion of the actual movement. For the I922 recovery, the final point is approximately at normal. The curve for debits in I929-30 is placed on the chart to facilitate comparison with the two declines which appear to resemble its movement most closely those of I920-2I and I883-84. The high point is placed on a level with that shown for I883, and twenty months (the duration of the I920-2I decline) from the middle line. This placing of the curve is not to be regarded as an expression of opinion as to the precise extent of possible further decline, or the exact length of time until the curve turns up. The twenty-month interval is the longest shown on the chart except that of the late seventies, which is not regarded as comparable because of the peculiar movement of the clearing figures in these years, attributable at least in part to the

The Production of Electricity as an Index of the Physical Volume of Business

which is free from the influence of prices. Bank debits, which afford the most general index of business activity, measure the dollar volume of transactions made through checks, and hence reflect the prices of goods, services (i.e., wages in general), and securities, as well as the volume of transactions; whereas most series expressed in physical units, however well they may reflect general movements, actually apply to some particular phase of activity, such as freight shipments or manufacturing.

Regional Business Conditions: A Study of Bank Debits

A,NALYSIS of business conditions in the I 2 federal reserve districts, as shown by the fluctuations in the volume of check payments (bank debits) since the beginning of I9I9, supports the following conclusions: (I) Business in the individual districts usually fluctuates in sympathy with that in the United States as a whole. There are no systematic differences in either the timing or nature of the business fluctuations among the various federal reserve (listricts, after due allowance has been made for varying seasonal movements and trends. Such differences as do appear are clearly less significant than the fundamental similarity in the broader movements. This condition is indicative of the close economic interrelationship of the several areas of our country. (2) Substantial improvement has been taking place in agricultural conditions in recent years. This is clearly reflected in the figures for the primarily agricultural districts, notably the Kansas City and Dallas districts. The sharpest recent movement is to be found in the Minneapolis district, where the marketing of a large spring wheat crop in I927 has been clearly reflected in the figures for debits. The Kansas City and Dallas districts exhibit a more steady gain, and have advanced materially above their I924 levels. (3) The recurrent brief periods of expansion, recession, and renewed expansion are less marked in bank debits than in basic production. This condition is explained by the fact that fluctuations in such production, while important, do not represent the movements of general business. Bank debits, on the other hand, constitute an extremely representative measure of the complex of activities included under the term general business. Production of consumption goods, wholesale and retail trade, construction of buildings and engineering projects, and agriculture these and all other forms of economic activity have a share in making up the total of check transactions. Thus, while production indexes have moved sharply during these intermediate movements, it seems probable that the narrower movements of total debits depict more accurately the course of general business over the past few years. Except in those districts which are primarily agricultural, the several districts contain such a diversity of economic interests that the volume of check transactions is relatively insensitive to changes in any one line of activity. There are, however, some instances (notably the Cleveland district, where the iron and steel trade is of such great importance) in which sharp changes in the pace of basic industry are reflected in the figures for debits. These conclusions are based upon adjusted relatives for bank debits which appear on Charts 3 and 5 and in Table 4. Conditions in the various federal reserve districts are discussed in the following sections and a map of the I2 districts appears on page I46. A full description of the actual data and the statistical methods employed in adjusting the figures for irregularities of the calendar, trend, and seasonal variation is given in the section on data and methods,

A New Method of Presenting a General Business Index and Forecast

The purpose of this paper is briefly to describe the construction of a general index and forecast of activity in the United States which embodies a number of features of interest to statisticians and executives. Many of the indices measuring changes in activity developed in recent years have been particularly concerned with a portrayal of the cycle. They have pictured the deviations of commercial and industrial activity or commodity prices from base lines and in percentage or standard-deviation units. There are believed to be distinct advantages, however, in combining in a index both the cyclical variations and the element of growth trend, which (with the seasonal pattern) forms the basis of the normal from which deviations are measured. It is also desired to show clearly the deviations from normal in percentage units, which are easily understood by the man using such an index for planning and budgeting purposes. An index of the type to be described is particularly useful in analyzing conditions in local areas which have diverse trends and in comparing these with each other and with the national picture. No single series of data is believed to be as satisfactory for use in constructing a general index as a combination of several selected series. The series used, however, should preferably reflect in a comprehensive manner changes in the nation's buying-power, exclusive of the security markets. This means buying-power exerted by consumers of finished goods and services, of industries, of distributors, builders, farmers, miners, railways, etc. In order to represent this, three series of monthly data have been selected-bank clearings in all cities reporting to the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, excluding New York; bank debits in 140 cities outside of New York; and the total car loadings of freight as reported by the American Railway Association, reduced to monthly form. Check transactions have the advantage, for the purpose in hand, of being actual and not artificially calculated data and also of being very comprehensive and automatically weighted. While doubtless the clearings and debits even outside the great speculative center contain some elements not strictly to be interpreted as business activity, nevertheless they do measure the flow of purchases and sales which

Revision of Curve A, Speculation

CURVE A, speculation, now appears in the index of general business conditions, substantially as developed in the I923 revision.' The curve is obtained by averaging cycles for bank debits in New York City and for the DowJones average of industrial stock prices. It did not appear in I923 that any secular trend was present in these two constituents; and, although the accumulation of data since that time has rendered the presence of an upward secular trend in each series increasingly evident, it is only recently that we have become confident of the possibility of measuring even approximately such trends. In Curve A as it has been appearing, therefore, no correction for trend has been made; and, for each constituent, the actual items are expressed as per cent deviations from assumed horizontal lines. These deviations are then used in determining the cycle figures. In the case of the'New York bank debits an adjustment is necessary because of the presence of seasonal variation.2 The seasonal correction for the bank debits figures allows not only for annually recurrent fluctuations which are essentially seasonal in character, but also for the effect of extraordinary financial transactions which take place quarterly. It is believed that the present Curve A gives a substantially accurate record of the short-time fluctuations of the speculative type since the war. The fact, however, that this curve is not corrected for secular trend accounts for its extraordinary elevation during the last three years, and leaves room for a misunderstanding of the current position of the curve because of its apparent extreme departure from a supposed horizontal normal. It is therefore desirable to revise the curve by making due allowance for secular trend, so far as it is now possible to measure such trend. Moreover, it has now become apparent that Curve A can be improved by excluding from it the series for New York bank debits. Finally, it is desirable to replace the Dow-Jones average of industrial stock prices by new averages which rest upon a wider sampling of market transactions. It is the object of the present article to discuss these several changes by which the revised Curve A is substituted for that heretofore used in the index chart.

Weekly Fluctuations in Outside Bank Debits

THE comprehensive and representative character of bank debits -bank clearings, before the commencement of reports for debits as a measure of business volumes is becoming more fully recognized with accumulating experience. There is, to be sure, some difference of opinion concerning the adequacy of debits as a measure of the physical volume of business.' Concerning the fitness of debits as a measure of the money volume of business, however, there is no considerable controversy; and the doctrine that debits furnishes the best single measure of the aggregate value of business transactions lacks little of being fully established. Moreover, it is now generally held that the fluctuations of debits in New York City reflect speculative movements in addition to business variations; and it is therefore customary to use debits New York City as more truly indicating the business transactions incident to industrial and commercial operations. That some portion of the variation in cities outside New York is speculative cannot be doubted, and that a large part of the variation in New York City arises from purely business transactions is also evident. The effect of speculative operations on outside debits is less clearly apparent than in New York, however, and a record of such debits may be accepted as a general measure of business activity. With the growing emphasis, in the study of business conditions, upon prompt information concerning brief developments, it becomes desirable to trace weekly figures for outside bank debits. The interpretation of such figures, with a view to appraising current tendencies within a particular phase of the business cycle, encounters serious obstacles. These obstacles are not identical with those which impede the use of aggregate monthly bank debits.2 For monthly data, the principal difficulties include: the making of allowances for holidays, the adjustment of figures for months having five Sundays, and the allocating of weeks which extend from one month into the following. Of these, only the first is of consequence in the study of weekly data: the irregular number of reporting days per week due to the very existence of holidays, the lack of uniformity in the observance of holidays in different cities, the uncertain effect on business volumes (both as respects extent and timing) of the observance of holidays, and the possibility that a particular holiday may at times fall within the same week as some other date (such as the first of the month) having a peculiar effect upon debits all these facts help to explain the effect of holidays upon the weekly figures. There are difficulties met with in the analysis of weekly data not encountered at least directly in the study of monthly aggregates. Chief of these arises in the custom for certain payments to be made on or about particular days of each month, with the result that there are considerable temporary expansions and contractions in debits at more or less regular times within the month. The fact that a particular day of the month does not fall on the same day of the week in each of several years implies an annual shifting of the weekly manifestations of these expansions and contractions. The effect upon the actual weekly figures for debits is most perplexing. It should be noted, moreover, that this intramonthly variation is not uniform for the twelve months of the year. In one month it is relatively intense, in another relatively slight; and this lack of uniformity is emphasized by the existence of certain large-scale financial transactions which distort the debits figures in particular months of each year. A further special difficulty encountered in the analysis of weekly data is due to the very detail sought in the weekly picture. The monthly aggregate marking the peak whether cyclical or seasonal in debits does not disclose the location of the peak within that month. This location becomes of moment in the study of weekly series; and the possibility that the peak effect as a whole is distributed, in unknown and perhaps unknowable proportion, between two adjacent weeks constitutes a serious obstacle in the analysis. 1 See Carl Snyder, this REVIEW, October I924, p. 256, and April I926, p, 85, for presentation of the case for the deflation of debits in order to measure physical volumes of business. 2 See this REVIEW, April 1926, p. 66.

The Revised Index of General Business Conditions

W pi THEN, in i919, the post-war Index Chart IV Vof General Business Conditions was constructed, the following statements were made: In order to interpret current data it was found necessary to estimate the level of prices.... The trend thus found is, frankly, a forecast which will be revised as new data become available. 1 . . . the readjustments from the extraordinary war period continue, it is necessary to repeat the cautionthat the conclusions to which the index points, rest upon a narrower basis than those for pre-war years, and are provisional and subject to revision. 2 The index constructed in July i919 was published in the Harvard Economic Service until May i9, I923. Since that date a revised index has been published currently, instead of the index constructed four years ago. The revised index chart, printed on page I79, is constructed according to the same principles as those used in the chart it displaces. Identical or similar statistical series are utilized; the same sequence of movements obtains; and the same methods of interpretation are applicable. The changes in the base lines, or lines of trend of the constituent series, and the use of units of measurement depending upon post-war fluctuations have resulted in a more convenient arrangement of the curves. The amplitude of the fluctuation for all three revised curves is approximately between -2 and +2 units of standard deviation. This. facilitates comparison of the direction and extent of movements of the curves a comparison which is of primary importance in making forecasts of business conditions.3 The data which have become available since the end of the war make it possible to determine base lines or lines of secular trend of the constituent statistical series with more confidence than was possible in i919. Especially in the cases of commodity prices and money rates, new data and a novel and effective device for eliminating secular trend (and yet preserving the cyclical fluctuations) give us confidence in our results. Further, the influence of income tax paymentsa non-business element which augments bank clearings and bank debits four times a year can now be appraised and allowed for.4 The statistical series utilized in our revised index chart include only bank debits, stock prices, commodity prices, and money rates. Curve A, speculation, is based upon New York bank debitsand industrial stock prices; 6 curve B, business, upon outside bank debits and commodity prices; and curve C, upon commercial paper rates. The constituent curves of each group are given in Chart i. Other loans (chiefly commercial) of reporting member banks of the federal reserve system are presented in that chart with money rates, but this series does not enter the average because it has become available only since i919, and there is not, as yet, sufficient evidence of the persistent similarity of its fluctuations with those of money rates to warrant its inclusion in curve C. Chart 2 shows the three volume-series plotted together and, in the lower section, the three priceand money-rate series. Asummary statement of the data and methods used appears in Table 2, page I93, and the adjusted items may be found in the Supplement for June I923, page i67. The revised index for i900-I4 constructed in the same manner as that for I919-23 is given in