User Guide

The NBOS data explorer, developed by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, provides an interactive way to explore current and future diffusion indexes for various measures of firm activity. The data come from the core questions in the NBOS, a monthly survey of nonmanufacturing firms in the Third Federal Reserve District. We summarize firm responses as diffusion indexes, calculated as the share of firms reporting an increase minus the share of firms reporting a decrease, and present them in the data explorer. They are also available to download.

Using the Data Explorer

You can use the charts in the data explorer to see how diffusion indexes for current and future measures change over time. Users can select a specific company measure, such as New Orders or Sales/Revenues, and see monthly values for that measure’s current index going back to March 2011. For General Activity (Firm) and General Activity (Region), users can see monthly values for the current and future indexes.

Using the Data

You can also download NBOS data. The downloadable file includes all historical monthly NBOS data and is updated with each monthly NBOS release.¹ The data are also revised annually to incorporate updated seasonal factors.

The NBOS captures meaningful information about changes in current business activity and expectations of future activity at nonmanufacturing firms in the Third District. The real-time survey results can provide timely insights into economic activity for the month for which data are collected — ahead of the official statistical releases of national economic data. Third District trends and comments from District businesses can offer valuable insights that help to assess the health of the economy and inform monetary policy discussions. With these data, you can track business conditions and specific company measures over time and changes in firm expectations for future activity.

Before working with the data, users should review the NBOS Definitions page, which explains what each variable means.

Other Things to Keep in Mind

We present the results of the NBOS as diffusion indexes because they aggregate qualitative survey responses from firms into quantitative economic measures. Although this facilitates tracking regional conditions over time, we still need to be careful with interpreting the diffusion index reading for a specific measure in a given period. By construction, NBOS index values below zero are typically associated with contractions (a larger share of respondents are reporting decreases relative to the share reporting increases), and values above zero are typically associated with expansions (the share reporting increases exceeds the share reporting decreases).

The diffusion index tells us little about the magnitude of change. Rather, it conveys the direction of change and the breadth of that trend among the firms surveyed. The magnitude of the diffusion index value indicates how widespread the activity: A larger magnitude indicates a bigger gap between the shares reporting one change over the other. Furthermore, the distribution of responses (percentages reporting increase, no change, or decrease) may affect our interpretation.

For example, a diffusion index of 10.7 could have been produced because 10.7 percent of the firms indicated an increase in an indicator and 0.0 percent of the firms indicated a decrease, with 89.3 percent indicating no change. Alternatively, an index of 10.7 could have been produced because 50.7 percent of the firms reported an increase, 40 percent reported a decrease, and just 9.3 percent reported no change.

See the MBOS User Guide for more examples.

Additional Resource

• How Do We Interpret Our Latest Survey Results?