Economy
What does a PMI diffusion index actually measure?
Breadth, not magnitude — a diffusion index counts how many firms report improvement, which is why 50 is a line, not a level.
Author
Rekha Patel
Rekha Patel reports on the work behind everyday products and systems — from Miami family businesses and e-book distribution economics to automation chains, security audit findings and the bias inside systems that allocate capital automatically. Her features focus on process, cost and where things break.
Articles by Rekha Patel
Economy
What does a yield curve inversion actually signal?
Every U.S. recession since the 1970s was preceded by an inversion — with lags of months to years and documented false positives elsewhere.
Economy
How is the CPI actually measured?
A fixed basket, chained updating, and a substitution correction — the CPI's machinery, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics documents it.
Economy
How do GDP nowcasting models work?
Nowcasts combine early-release data into a current-quarter estimate before the official number exists — with published error rates worth reading.