TL04: Let's Standardize Our Way to Better Economic Data

Oregon Convention Center 

Societies use standards to facilitate exchange, whether for weights and measures or electrical and plumbing equipment. As we enter the Information Age, we need more complete standards for highly exchanged data. This matters because, ironically, despite the advent of the information age has seen eroding quality in many timely and important official economic indicators—due to declining household and business survey response rates. As part of modernizing, statistical agencies are responding by relying more heavily on burgeoning public and private administrative data. But, as analysts know, much administrative data fails to measure what is needed, or is messy, inconsistent, incomplete, or difficult to obtain reliably. Current solutions to these challenges, such as blending multiple sources and applying computationally intensive fixes, can only take you so far. The talk will explore how wide adoption of data standards by the private sector could graft many advantages of surveys onto administrative sources. The main example discussed will be the Jobs and Employment Data Exchange initiative (led by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation) to devise and promote data standards for employers'

Data standards

Official statistics

Economic statistics

Labor Market

Employment

Jobs