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US employment cost index may mean more to markets than GDP
It doesn’t happen often, but the first look at fourth quarter gross domestic product report on Friday may play second fiddle to the quarterly employment cost index, a relatively lesser-known report on workers’ wages and benefits. “The employment cost index could be more important than GDP in the collective mind of the financial markets,” said Joseph Lavorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, in a recent research note. That’s because wages are key to the outlook for when, or if, the Federal Reserve will lift interest rates. With the real economy growing strongly, only low and declining inflation is ... (full story)