Out of curiosity, I peruse the web to see who is still saying a recession is coming (with an open mind). This tweet<\/a> suggests retail sales are the indicator de jour:<\/p>\n Source:<\/strong> Alex Joosten (2024)<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Pretty convincing, for the past 3 recessions. However, the post-pandemic boom in consumption and retail spending is quite remarkable, so I thought it might be useful to consider a longer span of data, using inflation adjusted retail sales. This is the picture I got, for 1947-2024M04.<\/p>\n Figure 1:<\/strong> Real retail sales (FRED series RSALES) (tan), and real retail and food service sales (FRED series RSAFS) (blue), in mn.1982-84$, deflated using FRED series CPIAUCSL. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: FRED, NBER.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s certainly true that retail sales flatten and even decline in some cases before a recession (as defined by the NBER). On the other hand, each of the previous cases, retail sales was deviating from a pre-recession trend. Is this true in this case? Without knowing if an incipient recession is just upon us, I can\u2019t answer that. However, I can evaluate whether retail and food sales, deflated by the CPI, was deviating from the 2016-19 (stochastic) trend.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/joostenpix.jpg\")
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