Global Barometers rise in February after falling in January
The Global Barometers increase slightly in February, partially recovering the losses of the previous month. The results indicate a possible consolidation of these levels for the indicators, after an upward tendency was indicated at the end of 2024.
In February, the Coincident Global Barometer increases by 0.9 points to 95.2 points, while the Leading Barometer gains 0.8 points to reach 103.3 points. The rise in the Coincident Barometer is driven by the indicator for the Asia, Pacific & Africa region, and in the Leading Barometer by the indicators for the Asia, Pacific & Africa region and Europe. The Western Hemisphere remains at the highest level among the regions for both temporal horizons.
“The most significant changes compared to last month are the increases of 0.7 and 0.8 points in the coincident and leading indicators for the Asia-Pacific and African regions, respectively. While the outlook for Europe has also improved (by 0.7 points), that for the Western Hemisphere has declined by the same amount. Nevertheless, only Asia-Pacific and Africa are worse off than a year ago. It will be interesting to see whether regional differences widen in the coming months in the current political environment”, evaluates Jan-Egbert Sturm, Director of KOF Swiss Economic Institute.
“It will be interesting to see whether regional differences widen in the coming months in the current political environment”Jan-Egbert Sturm, Director of KOF Swiss Economic Institute.
Coincident Barometer – regions and sectors
The 0.9-point increase in the Coincident Barometer in February results from the positive contribution of 0.7 points from the indicator for the Asia, Pacific & Africa region and 0.1 points from the indicators for Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The latter region maintains an increasing tendency for the fourth consecutive month to record its highest level since March 2022 (103.0 points). With this result, the Western Hemisphere is now more than 10 points above the indicator for the Asia, Pacific & Africa region.
Among the Coincident sector indicators, only Services is moving in the opposite direction, while Construction, Trade, and Industry drive this month’s increase, while the Economy (aggregated business and consumer evaluations) remains virtually stable.
Leading Barometer – regions and sectors
The Leading Global Barometer leads the world economic growth rate cycle by three to six months on average. In February, the Asia, Pacific & Africa region and Europe contribute positively to the aggregate result with 0.8 and 0.7 points, respectively. In contrast, the indicator for the Western Hemisphere contributes negatively with -0.7 points, interrupting a sequence of three consecutive gains. All the regional indicators are now above 100 points, suggesting a moderately positive outlook for world economic growth in the coming months.
Among the Leading sector indicators, only the indicator for Economy loses ground this month, which is its second consecutive decrease. The stronger growth in the Construction sector stands out in the first two months of 2025, with the indicator recording a high level of optimism for the coming months.
The Global Economic Barometers
The Global Economic Barometers are a system of indicators enabling timely analysis of global economic development. They represent a collaboration between the KOF Swiss Economic Institute of the ETH Zurich in Switzerland and Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The system consists of two composite indicators, the Coincident Barometer and the Leading Barometer. The Coincident Barometer reflects the current state of economic activity, while the Leading Barometer provides a cyclical signal roughly six months ahead of current economic developments.
The two Barometers comprise the results of economic tendency surveys conducted in more than 50 countries with the aim of achieving the broadest possible global coverage. The advantages of economic tendency surveys are that their results are usually readily available and are not substantially revised after first publication.
The Coincident Barometer includes more than 1,000 different time series, while the Leading Barometer consists of over 600 time series. Cross-correlation analysis is used to decide which individual time series are included in the barometers. This involves correlating the individual time series with a reference series. The reference series used is the year-on-year growth rate of global gross domestic product (GDP), where the individual national GDPs are aggregated at purchasing power parity to form global GDP. A time series is only included in a Barometer if it shows a sufficiently high correlation and a suitable synchronization or lead with the reference series. The time period used for this correlation analysis currently runs from January 2010 to December 2019.
The series of the two Barometers are revised each month at publication and are standardized to have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 10 for the 10-year period previous to the most recent observations.
The methodology is described in:
Klaus Abberger, Michael Graff, Aloisio Jr. Campelo, Anna Carolina Lemos Gouveia, Oliver Müller and Jan-Egbert Sturm (2020), The Global Economic Barometers: Composite indicators for the world economy. KOF Working Papers, vol. 471, Zurich: KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, 2020.
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