The Leading Economic Indicator for Nebraska decreased by 0.08 percent in October. This slight decline followed two months of solid growth in August and September.

“Improvement in (the indicator) over the last three months suggests moderate growth in the Nebraska economy in early 2014,” said UNL economist Eric Thompson.

Thompson is director of the Bureau of Business Research at UNL’s College of Business Administration, which produces the monthly indicator.

The Leading Economic Indicator for Nebraska is a composite of six components which predict future economic growth: single-family building permits, airline passenger counts, initial unemployment claims, manufacturing hours, the value of the U.S. dollar, and business expectations gathered from the Survey of Nebraska Business.

“Two components expanded during October, including the number of single-family building permits,” Thompson said. “There was a decline in business expectations during October; this was caused in part by a sharp drop in crop prices but the federal government shutdown also may have been a factor.”

Many of the respondents to the Survey of Nebraska Business completed the survey questionnaire during the shutdown, Thompson said.

The full Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators report and a Technical Report describing the indicators are available at http://www.cba.unl.edu.