Kansas City Fed Trimmed Import and Export Growth Rates (KCTIE)

The Kansas City Fed Trimmed Import and Export Growth Rates (KCTIE) are two monthly measures that can help reveal underlying trends in trade data while improving forecast accuracy.  By stripping out less predictive subcomponents of aggregate growth rates, trimmed growth rates provide a better signal of where aggregate imports or exports are heading and reduce forecast errors for aggregate imports and exports by up to 15 percent over four- to 12-month forecast horizons.

We calculate trimmed growth rates by omitting subcomponents with growth rates below the 65th percentile or above the 94th percentile of the disaggregated growth distribution.  The trimmed growth rates are then a weighted and normalized average over the remaining components that match the aggregate growth rate over time. The Economic Bulletin article "New Trimmed Import and Export Growth Rates Offer a Better Perspective on Underlying Trends" and the accompanying Research Working Paper "Introducing Trimmed Imports and Exports" provide further details on the trimmed growth rates and their construction.  All data series are accessed through USA Trade Online (Census Bureau) and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Included below are a downloadable CSV and customizable plots of the entire history of the trimmed series. Data are updated monthly and subject to revisions based on changes in the underlying series and seasonal adjustments. The data will be updated in accordance with the release schedule published below.

Download a CSV file of the data

Release Schedule