However, these official reports are always revised, sometimes by amounts so large we wonder why we pay attention to them at all.
Fortunately, we live in an era where massive amounts of information flows freely. And some savvy economists have flagged some seriously unorthodox indicators that reveal the truth about what's really going on in the economy.
Many of us are familiar with some of these indicators like the Big Mac Index and the lipstick indicator.
However, there are even weirder indicators like Kenyan Coca-Cola revenues, alligator populations, cheap romance novel sales, and the intensity of military recruitment ads that are arguably sound in their economic revelations.
Business Insider has compiled a list of the 54 most unusual ones. Take a look.
Eric Platt, Matthew Boesler, and Steven Perlberg contributed to an earlier version of this article.