For immediate release May 11, 2000
MEDIA ADVISORY
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta announced today that it is undertaking a review of its monthly Southeastern Manufacturing Survey and suspending its publication, including its press release scheduled for May 12, 2000.
In making the announcement, the Atlanta Fed said that the sample size of the survey, launched in 1992, has declined in recent years and that there is now a noticeable lack of continuity in respondents from month to month. Additionally, the Atlanta Fed said that the Southeastern manufacturing sector has been undergoing significant structural changes, resulting from mergers and consolidations, the shifting of certain types of manufacturing abroad and the entry of different types of firms into the region. The Atlanta Fed expressed concern that these trends may not be sufficiently reflected in the current sample for the survey.
"These factors have precipitated the need to evaluate the usefulness of continuing the survey in its present form, if at all," said Robert Eisenbeis, senior vice president and director of research. "Furthermore, based on some exploratory research of the lengthy time series we have now accumulated, we questioned whether the survey provides us useful information over and above what we gather from our considerable anecdotal sources throughout our district."
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta serves the Sixth Federal Reserve District, which encompasses Alabama, Florida, Georgia and portions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. As part of the nation's central banking system, the Atlanta Fed participates in setting national monetary policy, supervises numerous commercial banks and provides a variety of financial services to depository institutions and the U.S. government.