Monday, March 3, 2014

Jobs vs. Vehicle Miles

The following chart shows the 10 year moving average of nonfarm payrolls per capita (bottom scale) vs. monthly vehicle miles traveled per capita (left scale).


Click to enlarge.

There's plenty of downside risk for auto manufacturers here. Have I mentioned lately that parabolic trends are not sustainable?

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
at

3 comments:

  1. Stagflationary MarkMarch 3, 2014 at 6:16 PM

    In case you are interested...

    I first tried a linear trend (most sustainable). That didn't fit all that well.

    I then tried an exponential trend (less sustainable). That fit better but still didn't look quite right. It wasn't tracking the earliest periods or the latest periods all that well. The data was curving too much for it.

    And lastly, I tried a parabolic trend (least sustainable). As seen in the chart, that one fits almost perfectly.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rob DawgMarch 3, 2014 at 8:33 PM

    Maybe it isn't he numerator. Maybe it is what we count as a job these days.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stagflationary MarkMarch 4, 2014 at 12:19 AM

    Rob Dawg,

    Perhaps the economy is filled with relatively uncounted professional eBay traders. *shrug shoulders*

    ReplyDelete