Macro Compass.

Transparent by design

What the three readings mean

Growth, inflation and labour slack each display their own series, not an opaque combined risk score. Historical position is the share of the preceding ten years with a lower reading, with ties counted at half weight. At least five prior observations are required. A high inflation or unemployment position is not a bullish signal.

Clocks, revisions and missing values

Observations are annual World Development Indicators. The latest observation year, provider update date and retrieval time have different meanings. Readings older than two calendar years are marked lagged and receive no historical score. Revised historical data is not an as-known-at-the-time backtest. No invented consensus, release calendar or trade probability is displayed.

History and comparisons

Annual observations are requested from 1970 onward, where available. The selected history window ends at the latest observation (at the latest year across selected countries for comparisons). Missing years are never interpolated. Chart averages are arithmetic means of available annual observations, not compounded returns. Overview cards always show the latest reading.

Trade and economic size

Trade openness adds exports and imports as a share of GDP; trade balance subtracts imports from exports. These calculations use matching observation years only, without filling gaps. Current-account balance is a different measure. GDP and GDP per capita in current US dollars are nominal and affected by exchange rates; they are not PPP or real-income measures. Central-government debt is not total public-sector debt.

Refresh and reliability

Official sources are checked at most daily, with a five-minute retry backoff after errors. Refresh reloads the server snapshot; it does not imply a new publication. On a source failure, last verified observations remain visible with their original retrieval time and no historical score. A successful empty source response is not replaced by old values. If a source fails before the first successful refresh, an existing official reference archive may be shown, labelled as such with its original date.

Sources and attribution

World Bank WDI and its original providers; CC BY 4.0, subject to individual dataset notices. This is an independent product, not endorsed by the World Bank. The underlying public data remains freely accessible from its source. The subscription pays for the research interface and organisation.