Global supply chain conditions have largely normalized after experiencing temporary setbacks around the turn of the year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI), released April 6.

The bank says the research shows global supply chain pressures decreased again in March, falling from .28 to 1.06 standard deviations below the index’s historical average. The index peaked at 4.32 in December 2021, and has dropped fairly consistently since then.

The GSCPI integrates a number of commonly used metrics. Global transportation costs are measured by employing data from the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) and the Harpex index, as well as airfreight cost indices from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The GSCPI also uses several supply chain-related components from Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) surveys, focusing on manufacturing firms across seven interconnected economies: China, the euro area, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

There were significant downward contributions by many of the factors, with the largest negative contributions from European Area delivery times, European Area backlogs, and Taiwanese purchases.

The GSCPI is a product of the Applied Macroeconomics and Econometrics Center (AMEC).