That said, the index offers up some interesting nuggets.
The index offers an early measurement of sales activity.
The index offered a hint of higher inflation in the months ahead as those costs are passed to consumers.
The index offers a rough ranking of which economies are best placed to withstand another global downturn.
The new index offers some surprising findings based on factors such as inducements to innovation, prevalence of old technologies like telephones and general educational levels.
The Index offered $22,500 in prize money and hired June Williamson, an associate professor of architecture and urban design at the City College of New York, to serve as a consultant.
The Economist's Big Mac index offers a light-hearted guide to whether currencies are at their correct levels, according to the notion of "purchasing-power parity".
Patrick C. Jackman, a bureau economist who is considered its top authority on the index, offered one example: Viagra, the male impotence drug introduced in 1998, was moved into the index in 2000.
Either way, the index offered the latest evidence that economic activity has slowed much more rapidly than executives, investors and Federal Reserve economists were predicting even a few months ago.
Yet the index offers the potential for a profusion of case studies on varying scales, from the health of the Long Island Sound or San Francisco Bay to large-scale analyses of the Mediterranean Sea or the vast open waters of the Pacific.
