Experimental Economic Activity Indexes for Canadian Provinces and Territories: Experimental Measures Based on Combinations of Monthly Time Series

Timely measures of economic activity are critical for understanding how economies perform, and for informing policy responses to macroeconomic fluctuations. The onset of the pandemic due to the emergence of the SARS-Cov-2 virus emphasized this, as well as the need for geography-specific measures. Presently, Canada has a robust system for producing up-to-date measures of activity, such as real gross domestic product (GDP), at the national level. For provincial and territorial economies, monthly information on labour markets or particular activities such as manufacturing or international trade are available, but a monthly measure of aggregate economic activity is not available. This paper explores methods for creating a monthly indicator of economic activity for the provinces and territories.