The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research organization. It counts over 1,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries.
24-668: The Board convenes conferences and peer-learning groups, conducts economic and business management research, and publishes several widely tracked economic indicators . The organization was founded in 1916 as the National Industrial Conference Board (NICB). At the time, tensions between labor and management in the United States were seen as potentially explosive in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 and
48-486: A composite Leading Economic Index consisting of ten indicators designed to predict activity in the U. S. economy six to nine months in future. Components of the Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators Index: Economist D.W. Mackenzie suggests that the ratio of private to public employment may also be useful as a leading economic indicator. Lagging indicators are indicators that usually change after
72-1152: A wide range of global business media —from specialist trade publications to the Financial Times , the Wall Street Journal , CNBC , Bloomberg News , Forbes and Fortune . Notable examples include: The organization is considered a pioneer in professional councils, which were "created as a way to guide business leaders through boom and bust cycles." Each council is a invitation-only, self-governed group of executives. Each year, around 2,500 executives participate in The Conference Board councils. These range from networks organized for specific C-suite titles—including multiple councils for chief financial officers , chief human resources officers , chief legal officers , and corporate treasurers —to those focused on narrower areas of expertise or emerging business challenges, such as artificial intelligence . The Conference Board has received multiple awards: Economic indicator An economic indicator
96-795: Is a statistic about an economic activity . Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance. One application of economic indicators is the study of business cycles . Economic indicators include various indices, earnings reports, and economic summaries: for example, the unemployment rate, quits rate (quit rate in American English), housing starts , consumer price index (a measure for inflation ), Inverted yield curve , consumer leverage ratio , industrial production , bankruptcies , gross domestic product , broadband internet penetration , retail sales , price index , and changes in credit conditions. The leading business cycle dating committee in
120-682: Is an American nonprofit and nonpartisan public policy think tank. The board of trustees consist primarily of senior corporate executives from a range of U.S. industries and sectors. The organization has been credited with helping to create the Marshall Plan . According to Fortune the organization "originated in the Commerce Department " in 1942 and was created to encourage collaborative research among business leaders, economists, and New Deal politicians "to promote free enterprise and full employment, paying particular attention to
144-836: The Joint Economic Committee ) and the Marshall Plan . Since its inception, CED has promoted policies that its trustees believe will foster American economic growth and development and indirectly benefit the country and people. The organization conducts research and outreach efforts in the U.S. and abroad to change policy at all levels of government. More recently CED has also advocated to increase access to pre-kindergarten and college , for campaign finance reform nationally, for more women in corporate leadership, and for reduced government spending. As of 2022 CED's stated aims are to sustain and promote free enterprise , improve education and healthcare , reform campaign finance , enhance corporate governance , and improve
168-682: The Ludlow Massacre in 1914. In 1915, presidents of twelve major corporations in the United States and six leading industry associations met in Yama, New York to formulate the business community's response to continued labor unrest and growing public criticism. After additional crisis meetings, the National Industrial Conference Board was officially founded on May 5, 1916, at the Hotel Gramatan in Bronxville, New York . Although many of
192-542: The National War Labor Board formed by President Woodrow Wilson asked the NICB to formulate plans that would keep war industries running and strife-free. Its recommendations—based on cooperation between representatives of employers, employees, and government—were adopted in full. Though often mistrusted in its early years as an “employers union” funding studies against the labor movement, the non-profit NICB
216-609: The United States of America is the private National Bureau of Economic Research . The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the field of labor economics and statistics. Other producers of economic indicators includes the United States Census Bureau and United States Bureau of Economic Analysis . Economic indicators can be classified into three categories according to their usual timing in relation to
240-722: The American business community for the Marshall Plan . In January 2015, the Committee for Economic Development merged with The Conference Board . Both are non-partisan, non-lobbying, and have trustees drawn mainly from the business community. The CED has been credited with helping to create the Bretton Woods Agreement , the Employment Act of 1946 (and therefore the Council of Economic Advisers and
264-784: The US leading economic indicator series. In 2006, The Conference Board established its China Center for Economic and Business in Beijing as a resource for senior executives of multinational companies. In 2015, the Committee for Economic Development (CED) merged with The Conference Board as its US public-policy center. The Conference Board has offices in New York, Brussels , Beijing , Hong Kong , and Singapore . The Conference Board produces research, convenes conferences, and organizes executive peer-learning councils through regional centers. In
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#1732765584778288-637: The United States, it currently operates five Centers from New York City: In Europe, The Conference Board hosts three Centers: In the Asia-Pacific region, the organization hosts three Centers: Additionally, The Conference Board operates a China Center for executives of multinational companies. The Conference Board publishes a number of regular indicators for United States and international economies that are widely tracked by investors, business leaders, and policy makers. They include: The Conference Board's research reports and experts are often featured in
312-405: The business cycle: leading indicators, lagging indicators, and coincident indicators. Leading indicators are indicators that usually, but not always, change before the economy as a whole changes. They are therefore useful as short-term predictors of the economy. Leading indicators include the index of consumer expectations, building permits, and credit conditions. The Conference Board publishes
336-436: The contributions of members, often Fortune 500 companies. By the 1930s, however, it had already lost most of its character as an industry lobby. Virgil Jordan, a writer and economist who replaced Alexander as president on the latter's death in 1932, established a Bureau of Economic Audit and Control to offer members and the public an independent source of studies on unemployment, pensions , healthcare, and related issues in
360-634: The current state of the economy. There are many coincident economic indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product , industrial production, personal income and retail sales. A coincident index may be used to identify, after the fact, the dates of peaks and troughs in the business cycle. There are four economic statistics comprising the Index of Coincident Economic Indicators: The Philadelphia Federal Reserve produces state-level coincident indexes based on 4 state-level variables: There are also three terms that describe an economic indicator's direction relative to
384-444: The direction of the general economy: Local governments often need to project future tax revenues. The city of San Francisco, for example, uses the price of a one-bedroom apartment on Craigslist , weekend subway ridership numbers, parking garage usage, and monthly reports on passenger landings at the city's airport. Committee for Economic Development The Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board ( CED )
408-421: The economy as a whole does. Typically the lag is a few quarters of a year. The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator: employment tends to increase two or three quarters after an upturn in the general economy. . In a performance measuring system, profit earned by a business is a lagging indicator as it reflects a historical performance; similarly, improved customer satisfaction is the result of initiatives taken in
432-524: The first time. In 1954, it founded The Conference Board of Canada in Montreal, which was spun off as an independent non-profit in 1981. In 1959, its first overseas CEO-level was held in Torquay, England, bringing together executives and board presidents from the US, UK, and Canada. In January 1970, the National Industrial Conference Board officially changed its name to The Conference Board. This followed
456-498: The launch in 1967 of the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index , a monthly survey of households that remains its flagship economic indicator. In 1976, it added the Measure of CEO Confidence, which tracks the attitudes of chief executives regarding economic conditions overall and within their industry (in conjunction with The Business Council ). In 1996, the U.S. Department of Commerce selected The Conference Board to produce and distribute
480-509: The midst of the Great Depression , when many questioned the credibility of the government's economic statistics. Unions soon joined the NICB alongside corporations for access to its research, conferences, and executive network. The organization is considered an unbiased "trusted source for statistics and trends, second only to perhaps the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ". After World War II , it expanded to non-U.S. members for
504-428: The needs of small business". The first business leaders on board were Paul G. Hoffman , president of Studebaker Corporation ; William Benton , co-founder of Benton & Bowles advertising firm; and Marion B. Folsom , treasurer of Eastman Kodak Company . CED was first formed to help the U.S. economy transition from a wartime to peacetime economy. At the end of World War II , CED worked to garner support among
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#1732765584778528-496: The organizations’ founders—including former AT&T president Frederick P. Fish and General Electric executive Magnus W. Alexander , its first president—had supported the open-shop movement ; by 1916, they regarded national unions such as the American Federation of Labor as permanent fixtures of the American economy, and urged negotiation and concord. When the United States entered World War I in 1917,
552-424: The past. The Index of Lagging Indicators is published monthly by The Conference Board , a non-governmental organization, which determines the value of the index from seven components. The Index tends to follow changes in the overall economy. The components on the Conference Board's index are: Coincident indicators change at approximately the same time as the whole economy, thereby providing information about
576-530: Was also seen “as a spokesman for the so-called progressive wing of the business community [and] produced hundreds of research reports on economic and social issues facing the United States.” Pioneering research published in this period include Woman Workers and Labor Supply , The Eight-Hour Day Defined , U.S. Cost of Living Index , and a series of reports on Workers' Compensation Acts in The United States . The organization today remains funded by
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