This paper presents a coincident and a leading composite monthly indicator for the world business cycle—the Global Economic Barometers. Both target the world’s output growth rate and consist of economic tendency surveys results from many countries around the world. The calculation of these indicators comprises two main stages. The first consists of a variable selection procedure, in which a pre-set correlation threshold and the targeted leads to the reference series are used as selection criteria. In the second stage, the selected variables are combined and transformed into the respective composite indicators, computed as the first partial least squares factor with the reference series as response variable. We analyse the characteristics of the two new indicators in a pseudo real-time setting and demonstrate that both are useful additions to the small number of indicators for the global business cycle published so far. Finally, yet importantly, the Barometers were quick to plunge in the beginning of March 2020 and have since then given a reliable real-time reflection of the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

本文介绍了世界商业周期的一个同步且领先的综合月度指标——全球经济晴雨表。两者都以世界产出增长率为目标，并包含来自世界许多国家的经济趋势调查结果。这些指标的计算包括两个主要阶段。第一个包括变量选择程序，其中预设的相关阈值和参考系列的目标线索用作选择标准。在第二阶段，将所选变量组合并转换为各自的综合指标，计算为第一偏最小二乘因子，以参考序列为响应变量。我们在伪实时设置中分析了这两个新指标的特征，并证明这两个指标都是对迄今为止发布的全球商业周期的少数指标的有用补充。最后，但重要的是，晴雨表在 2020 年 3 月初迅速暴跌，并从那时起可靠地实时反映了 Covid-19 大流行的经济后果。