Definitions

MBOS Data Definitions

Survey respondents indicate whether they’ve seen an increase, decrease, or no change in the variables below. The survey asks for assessments of business activity for this month compared with last month (current) and what their expectations are for business activity six months from now compared with this month (future).

General Activity (ga)

Overall business activity level for the responding firm

New Orders (no)

Orders that have been placed by customers (does not account for order fulfillment)

Shipments (sh)

Orders that have been shipped to customers

Unfilled Orders (uo)

Orders that customers have placed that the firm has not yet delivered

Delivery Times (dt)

Time between the firm’s customers placing an order and the customers receiving their items

Inventories (iv)

Product stock on hand

Prices Paid (pp)

Prices that the firm paid for input materials

Prices Received (pr)

Prices that the firm charged customers

Number of Employees (ne)

People employed by the firm

Average Workweek (aw)

Average number of hours worked per week

Capital Expenditures (ce)

Spending on capital investments (future only)

Date

Month that the survey was conducted, in Mon-YY format

Column Names in Data File

In the data file, the column names incorporate the following elements:

• Variable: Abbreviations listed above (e.g., ga)
• Current (c) or future (f) activity
• Percentage of respondents that reported an increase (i), decrease (d), or no change (n)
• “df” denotes a column in which data are presented as a diffusion index (percent increase minus percent decrease)
• Not seasonally adjusted (na) or seasonally adjusted (sa)

For example, the gacdna column represents current general activity, percentage reporting decreases, not seasonally adjusted (ga + c + d + na).