Methodological foundations

A macroeconomic analysis is only as good as its sources, its understanding of transmission lags, and the rigor of its assumptions. This page documents Eco3min’s editorial framework, data pipeline, and citation conventions.

Designed for researchers, journalists, and analysts who want to assess the reliability of the analyses produced before drawing on them, citing them, or contesting them.

1. A structural editorial approach

All content published on Eco3min is grounded in a structural macroeconomic and macro-financial approach. The objective is to decode the underlying drivers of the economy, characterize prevailing macroeconomic and monetary configurations, and highlight medium- and long-term trends shaping the economic environment and market dynamics.

Eco3min does not produce news summaries or real-time conjunctural commentary. Publication operates on a different timescale from the media flow: economic time is not information time. Monetary transmission mechanisms typically take 12 to 18 months to propagate through the real economy; a credit cycle stretches over several years; a structural constraint (demographics, debt, energy) is measured in decades.

This positioning serves a specific purpose: enable the reader to step back from conjunctural uncertainty by relying on coherent analytical frameworks rather than reacting to headlines. For applied reading focused on individual investing, see the beginner’s investing guide.

2. Analytical frameworks employed

Analyses revolve around four complementary frameworks:

• Core economic cycles: real activity, price dynamics, credit expansion, and their inflection phases.
• Prevailing monetary and financial regimes: central bank policy stance, financial conditions, cost of capital evolution, global liquidity dynamics.
• Transmission channels: causal chains linking central bank action, market behavior, and the real economy (policy rate → 10-year yield → mortgage cost → solvent demand → housing prices, for example).
• Long-term structural constraints: fiscal sustainability, demographic shifts, geopolitical tensions, energy transition, value chain deglobalization.

This architecture is detailed on the page reading economic and financial cycles, which provides the conceptual framework employed. The Eco3min analysis tools formalize the application of these frameworks.

3. Distinguishing facts, analysis, hypotheses

Each publication explicitly distinguishes four levels of statements. This editorial discipline is constitutive of the Eco3min voice:

• Established fact: data measured by an identified institution, on an identified date. Formulation: “According to [source], [data].”
• Documented causal mechanism: transmission chain validated by the macroeconomic literature. Formulation: “This mechanism implies that…”
• Conditional hypothesis: mechanical consequence if a condition is met, without assertion of its probability. Formulation: “If [condition], then [consequence].”
• Interpretation: one analytical reading among others, signaled as such. Formulation: “One reading suggests that…”

The absence of distinction between these four levels is the main source of confusion in popular economic analysis. Eco3min refuses formulations that blur them: “markets know that…”, “the Fed will have to…”, “it is obvious that…”. No institution has an obligation, no mechanism is automatically deterministic, no reading is obvious.

4. Interpreting indicators and constructing scenarios

Eco3min adopts a prudent stance in interpreting economic indicators, systematically accounting for:

• Publication lags (a CPI release for month M typically covers prices collected through M-1);
• Statistical revision frequency (BLS employment figures are revised twice after initial release);
• The distinction between leading indicators (PMI, yield curve, credit conditions), coincident indicators (industrial production, employment), and lagging indicators (unemployment, core inflation);
• Lags between market signals and underlying economic reality, sometimes spanning several quarters.

No single indicator is treated as a standalone signal. All analysis rests on the coherent interpretation of multiple data points within their broader macroeconomic context. Scenarios presented are explicitly conditional: underlying assumptions formulated, degree of uncertainty acknowledged, conditions of invalidation specified.

5. Data sources used

Eco3min exclusively mobilizes macroeconomic and financial data from public institutions or reference providers widely recognized in the economic community. All series distributed on the site’s dataset pages link to their primary source, and any processing applied is documented. The list below covers the main sources currently integrated into the pipeline.

5.1 FRED — Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

More than 75 series currently integrated. FRED constitutes the broadest data foundation on the site, covering US interest rates (Fed Funds, Treasury curve from 3 months to 30 years), monetary aggregates (M2, monetary base, Fed balance sheet), activity indicators (GDP, industrial production, employment replicated from BLS), prices (CPI, PCE, deflators), financial conditions (Chicago Fed NFCI, national FCIs), spreads (High Yield OAS, BAA-AAA), and recession indicators (Sahm Rule, 2s10s curve, GDPNow). Official source: fred.stlouisfed.org.

5.2 ECB — European Central Bank Statistical Data Warehouse

More than 25 series integrated. The ECB provides policy rates (DFR, MRO, MLF), Eurosystem balance sheets, household and corporate credit volumes (BSI series), bank surveys (Bank Lending Survey), euro area monetary aggregates (M1, M2, M3), and euro financial conditions indicators. Official source: data.ecb.europa.eu.

5.3 BIS — Bank for International Settlements

Central bank policy rates globally (Central Bank Policy Rates series), credit-to-GDP ratios (Total Credit Statistics), household debt-to-GDP, international financial stress indicators. Official source: bis.org/statistics.

5.4 BLS — Bureau of Labor Statistics

US employment data (Nonfarm Payrolls, JOLTS, unemployment U-3 and U-6), detailed inflation (CPI by component, average hourly earnings, ECI). Most relevant BLS series are replicated via FRED, allowing format homogeneity within the pipeline. Official source: bls.gov/data.

5.5 Shiller Yale Database

Long series constructed by Robert Shiller: CAPE ratio (Shiller P/E), S&P 500 dividend yield, Excess CAPE Yield (ECY), real S&P 500 price since 1871. Monthly updates. Source: econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm.

5.6 NY Fed — Federal Reserve Bank of New York

ACM term premium (Adrian, Crump, Moench model), Survey of Consumer Expectations, primary dealers data, financial stress indicators. Official source: newyorkfed.org/research.

5.7 World Bank — Pink Sheet

Monthly commodity prices (gold, silver, brent, copper, agricultural commodities) since 1960. The Pink Sheet became Eco3min’s main source for gold and silver after the LBMA Price moved to members-only access in November 2025. Official source: worldbank.org/research/commodity-markets.

5.8 NBER — National Bureau of Economic Research

Official dating of US recessions (Business Cycle Dating Committee). All references to US recession periods on the site rely on the official NBER peaks and troughs. Official source: nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating.

5.9 CoinGecko

Bitcoin and Ethereum price data (daily USD series), market capitalizations, volumes. Used for crypto asset analyses. Source: coingecko.com.

6. Pipeline architecture and refresh frequencies

The Eco3min data pipeline relies on three automated processes (GitHub Actions) that collect series, generate the distributed files, and trigger the corresponding WordPress page updates.

6.1 Pipeline 1 — FRED

Daily execution at 08:00 UTC, seven days a week. Covers the 75+ integrated FRED series. Each series is fetched via the official FRED API, validated (consistency, gaps, last observation), then converted into two distributed formats (CSV and XLSX) accompanied by a JSON metadata file.

6.2 Pipeline 2 — ECB

Execution from Monday to Saturday at 09:30 UTC. Covers the 25+ ECB series, fetched via the SDW (Statistical Data Warehouse) API. The timing is calibrated on ECB publication hours. Sunday is excluded (no source-side updates).

6.3 Pipeline 3 — Non-FRED non-ECB sources

Separate pipeline covering CoinGecko (daily crypto series), Shiller Yale (monthly), NY Fed ACM term premium (monthly), World Bank Pink Sheet (monthly). Our term-premium dataset compiles the full historical series. Refresh frequencies are aligned with the publication frequency of each primary source.

6.4 WordPress-side updates

Once files are generated and deployed to the OVH server, a REST touch endpoint is called to update the dateModified field of each affected dataset page. This mechanism ensures that JSON-LD schemas distributed to search engines and LLMs reflect the actual freshness of the data.

Pages systematically display the date of the last FRED observation (not the cron run date), via the PHP-generated key stats cards. This distinction matters: a dataset refreshed on a public holiday may display a last observation predating the update date, and it is the observation that prevails.

7. Data processing methodology

Distributed data follows four processing principles:

• Preservation of raw data. CSV and XLSX files contain the series in its original unit and native frequency. No seasonal adjustment, deflation, or transformation is applied by default.
• Explicit transformations. When a transformation is necessary for a study (annualized growth rate, moving averages, constructed ratios), it is documented on the corresponding study page, with the applied formula stated.
• Splicing. For long series combining multiple successive sources (for example Shiller for the S&P 500 before 1957 then FRED afterward), the junction zone and splicing method are indicated.
• Discontinued series. When a source series ceases to be published, the dataset page flags the break, freezes the available history, and points to a replacement series where applicable (example: transition from LBMA Price to World Bank Pink Sheet for gold from November 2025 onward).

8. Versioning, traceability, and updates

Each dataset page carries three traceability indicators:

• The last observation date of the series (visible in the Key Stats block).
• The page update date (dateModified JSON-LD, fed by the pipeline).
• The source series code (FRED series code, ECB key family, etc.), allowing any user to trace back to the original data.

Analyses and studies built on this data follow a conditional update logic: they are revised when a significant shift in macroeconomic regime requires it, or when initial working assumptions are invalidated by the facts. A study published on a given monetary regime remains relevant as long as that regime persists.

9. Creative Commons BY 4.0 license

All Eco3min datasets, analyses, and studies are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

This license authorizes any reuse, including commercial, provided that:

• Eco3min is credited as the source;
• A link to the license is provided (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0);
• Any modifications made to the original content are indicated.

This license choice reflects a clear intent: facilitate reuse by researchers, journalists, students, and professionals who wish to draw on Eco3min data and analyses, provided the source is credited.

10. Citation and reuse

Standardized citation formats (plain text, BibTeX, APA 7th edition, Chicago Author-Date, Markdown) are available on the dedicated page: how to cite Eco3min.

This page documents citation of the site as a whole, of a specific dataset, or of an analytical study, with copyable examples. For any specific use case (commercial integration, translation, citation in peer-reviewed academic work), direct contact is available: [email protected].

11. Acknowledged limits of macroeconomic analysis

Eco3min explicitly acknowledges the inherent limits of any macroeconomic analytical approach:

• Economic relationships do not follow mechanical determinism. The same shock may produce different effects depending on the prior regime, balance-sheet conditions, or international context.
• Exogenous shocks (geopolitical, health, technological) may rapidly disrupt established equilibria and invalidate temporarily relevant analytical frameworks.
• Economic policy measures produce delayed effects, sometimes non-linear, and potentially amplified or absorbed by agents’ anticipatory behavior.
• No methodology eliminates uncertainty. The objective is to make it legible and to minimize major interpretation errors, not to produce infallible forecasts.

Analyses published on Eco3min should be understood as interpretive frameworks, not as certainties or operational predictions. Eco3min provides no personalized recommendation and shall not constitute investment advice (see editorial standards and about).

12. Further reading

• Reading economic and financial cycles — the conceptual framework employed in analyses.
• Eco3min macroeconomic analysis tools — the three operational frameworks derived from this methodology.
• How to cite Eco3min — standardized citation formats.
• Editorial standards — editorial commitments and regulatory compliance.
• About Eco3min — mission and positioning.

Last updated — 22 June 2026