From one year to the next, the activity seems to increase further. Below is the Lewis-Mertens-Stock (New York Fed) WEI, the Woloszko (OECD) Weekly Tracker and the Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims Weekly Economic Conditions Index for the United States, for the data up to a week ago (September 10th):
Figure 1: Lewis-Mertens-Stock (NY Fed) Weekly Economic Index (blue), Woloszko (OECD) Weekly Tracker (tan), Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims Weekly Economic Conditions Index for US plus 2% trend (green) hypothetical dates of the H1 recession. Source: New York Fed via Fred, OECD, WECIand the author’s calculations.
The WEI reading for the week ending 9/10 of 2.6 is interpretable as annual quarterly growth of 2.6% if the reading of 2.6 were to persist for an entire quarter. The OECD Weekly Tracker reading of 2.1 can be interpreted as an annual growth rate of 2.1% for the year ending 9/10. The Baumeister et al. a reading of 1.5% is interpreted as a growth rate 1.5% above the long-term trend growth rate. Average US GDP growth over the period 2000-19 is about 2%, implying a growth rate of 3.5% for the year ending 9/10.
Given that these are year-over-year growth rates, it is possible that we were in a recession in the first half, because an observer suggested a month ago (the period is highlighted by the lilac shading), but it seems (still) unlikely.