In an attempt to understand the economy and so ease the kinds of cyclic ups and downs that can cause so much harm to both businesses and individuals, economists have created a number of different types of measures of the economy to help them wipe the fog from their crystal balls. Three of the most important classes of indicators are leading, lagging and coincidence indicators. This paper examines the differences among these three types of indicators and then assesses how the food and tobacco segment of the economy may be classified according to this system of indicators.
