Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is most often used by the government of a single country to measure its economic health. Due to its complex and subjective nature, this measure is often revised before being considered a reliable indicator.
The economy of Nicaragua is focused primarily on the agricultural sector. Nicaragua itself is the least developed country in Central America, and the second poorest in the Americas by nominal GDP. In recent years, under the administrations of Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan economy has expanded somewhat, following the Great Recession, when the country's economy actually contracted by 1.5%, due to decreased export demand in the American and Central American markets, lower commodity prices for key agricultural exports, and low remittance growth. The economy saw 4.5% growth in 2010 thanks to a recovery in export demand and growth in its tourism industry. Nicaragua's economy continues to post growth, with preliminary indicators showing the Nicaraguan economy growing an additional 5% in 2011. Consumer Price inflation have also curtailed since 2008, when Nicaragua's inflation rate hovered at 19.82%. In 2009 and 2010, the country posted lower inflation rates, 3.68% and 5.45%, respectively. Remittances are a major source of income, equivalent to 15% of the country's GDP, which originate primarily from Costa Rica, the United States, and European Union member states. Approximately one million Nicaraguans contribute to the remittance sector of the economy.
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction that occurs when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending. This may be triggered by various events, such as a financial crisis, an external trade shock, an adverse supply shock, the bursting of an economic bubble, or a large-scale anthropogenic or natural disaster.
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction, with a cabin that is independent of the payload portion of the vehicle. Smaller varieties may be mechanically similar to some automobiles. Commercial trucks can be very large and powerful and may be configured to be mounted with specialized equipment, such as in the case of refuse trucks, fire trucks, concrete mixers, and suction excavators. In American English, a commercial vehicle without a trailer or other articulation is formally a "straight truck" while one designed specifically to pull a trailer is not a truck but a "tractor".
A consumer confidence index (CCI) is an economic indicator published by various organizations in several countries.
An economic indicator 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, housing starts, consumer price index, Inverted yield curve, consumer leverage ratio, industrial production, bankruptcies, gross domestic product, broadband internet penetration, retail sales, price index, and changes in credit conditions.
A truck driver is a person who earns a living as the driver of a truck, which is commonly defined as a large goods vehicle (LGV) or heavy goods vehicle (HGV).
The Monroney sticker or window sticker is a label required in the United States to be displayed in all new automobiles and includes the listing of certain official information about the car. The window sticker was named after Almer Stillwell "Mike" Monroney, United States Senator from Oklahoma.
The fuel economy of an automobile relates to the distance traveled by a vehicle and the amount of fuel consumed. Consumption can be expressed in terms of the volume of fuel to travel a distance, or the distance traveled per unit volume of fuel consumed. Since fuel consumption of vehicles is a significant factor in air pollution, and since the importation of motor fuel can be a large part of a nation's foreign trade, many countries impose requirements for fuel economy. Different methods are used to approximate the actual performance of the vehicle. The energy in fuel is required to overcome various losses encountered while propelling the vehicle, and in providing power to vehicle systems such as ignition or air conditioning. Various strategies can be employed to reduce losses at each of the conversions between the chemical energy in the fuel and the kinetic energy of the vehicle. Driver behavior can affect fuel economy; maneuvers such as sudden acceleration and heavy braking waste energy.
The economy of Minnesota produced US$312 billion of gross domestic product in 2014. Minnesota headquartered 31 publicly traded companies in the top 1,000 U.S. companies by revenue in 2011. This includes such large companies as Target and UnitedHealth Group. The per capita personal income in 2016 was $51,990, ranking sixteenth in the nation. The median household income in 2013 ranked eleventh in the nation at $60,900.
A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) system with an electric propulsion system. The presence of the electric powertrain is intended to achieve either better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle or better performance. There is a variety of HEV types and the degree to which each function as an electric vehicle (EV) also varies. The most common form of HEV is the hybrid electric car, although hybrid electric trucks, buses, boats and aircraft also exist.
Idle reduction describes technologies and practices that minimize the amount of time drivers idle their engines. Avoiding idling time has a multitude of benefits including: savings in fuel and maintenance costs, extending vehicle life, and reducing damaging emissions. An idling engine consumes only enough power to keep itself and its accessories running, therefore, producing no usable power to the drive train.
The trucking industry serves the American economy by transporting large quantities of raw materials, works in process, and finished goods over land—typically from manufacturing plants to retail distribution centers. Trucks are also used in the construction industry, two of which require dump trucks and portable concrete mixers to move the large amounts of rocks, dirt, concrete, and other building materials used in construction. Trucks in America are responsible for the majority of freight movement over land and are tools in the manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing industries.
The American Trucking Associations (ATA), founded in 1933, is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in the United States through a federation of other trucking groups, industry-related conferences, and its 50 affiliated state trucking associations. Former Governor of Kansas Bill Graves was replaced by Chris Spear as the ATA's president and CEO in July 2016.
The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. Proceeds from the tax partly support the Highway Trust Fund. The federal tax was last raised on October 1, 1993, and is not indexed to inflation, which increased 111% from Oct. 1993 until Dec. 2023. On average, as of April 2019, state and local taxes and fees add 34.24 cents to gasoline and 35.89 cents to diesel, for a total US volume-weighted average fuel tax of 52.64 cents per gallon for gas and 60.29 cents per gallon for diesel.
Nowcasting in economics is the prediction of the very recent past, the present, and the very near future state of an economic indicator. The term is a portmanteau of "now" and "forecasting" and originates in meteorology. Typical measures used to assess the state of an economy, such as gross domestic product (GDP) or inflation, are only determined after a delay and are subject to revision. In these cases, nowcasting such indicators can provide an estimate of the variables before the true data are known. Nowcasting models have been applied most notably in Central Banks, who use the estimates to monitor the state of the economy in real-time as a proxy for official measures.
Inflation rate in India was 5.5% as of May 2019, as per the Indian Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. This represents a modest reduction from the previous annual figure of 9.6% for June 2011. Inflation rates in India are usually quoted as changes in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), for all commodities.
Blue Chip Economic Indicators is a monthly survey and associated publication by Wolters Kluwer collecting macroeconomic forecasts related to the economy of the United States. The survey polls America's top business economists, collecting their forecasts of U.S. economic growth, inflation, interest rates, and a host of other critical indicators of future business activity. It has a sister publication called Blue Chip Financial Forecasts, which surveys forecasts of the future direction and level of U.S. interest rates.
