PMI Methodology – How the Purchasing Managers Index series is created
How the PMIs are created
Over 20,000 panel companies from 26 countries respond to our business survey every month. Our panel of reporting companies have been carefully chosen to accurately replicate the true structure of the economy in miniature. This panel remains unchanged each month to give an accurate and consistent guide to economic trends over time.
Survey questions relate to different measures of global economic business activity. Responses reflect the change, if any, in the current month’s indicators compared to the previous month based on data collected mid-month. The individual responses are converted into diffusion indices, which have the properties of leading indicators and are convenient summary measures showing the prevailing direction of change.
For more detail on the methodology behind each of our PMIs, click on the individual index below::