WASHINGTON (MNI) – U.S. economic data that informs policy, moves markets and helps businesses make decisions has been collected and disseminated much the same way for decades, but as the vast amount of information that is being collected multiplies and data analytics companies grow at a pace that is six times faster than the rest of the economy, the government is looking to catch up.
“I think 10 years from now it is going to be really different,” Mark Doms, Commerce Department Under Secretary for Economic Affairs told MNI about the way government data is collected and used and how it will get better. He spoke following a Capitol Hill briefing on ways to leverage government statistics for data-driven innovation.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis will release the third estimate of second quarter GDP growth on September 26, but the data contained in the report will be three months old by then.
Doms said it is time to explore ways to provide fresher and more frequent snapshots of the economy that would be of more use for businesses and policy makers.
As an example, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen reiterated on Wednesday the Federal Reserve’s “data dependent” policy stance, but the data Fed economists are looking at is often at least a month old.
“When it comes to the economy – what is going on with the economy now and what we currently do is – we send out surveys, we get survey responses and we publish the data with a lag, and that is just not a sustainable model,” Doms said during the briefing.
Doms also said that the integrity of some of the government data is waning.
“A challenge we face is declining response rates in some of our surveys,” Doms said. “Companies and individuals don’t like to report as much as they used to and it affects the quality of our data – that is why we have bigger revisions.”
President Obama has also been a proponent of opening up government data for public consumption and has launched a “Big Data” initiative.
“The administration is empowering the public – through greater openness and new technologies – to influence the decisions that affect their lives,” the White House Open Government Initiative says on its Web site.
The data briefing on Capitol Hill was sponsored by Senator Mark Warner and Doms was flanked by data experts from IBM, Zillow, the City of Chicago and the Center for Data Innovation – a think tank that advocates for data analytics.
The City of Chicago has been a leader in experimenting with real-time data analytics, including putting sensors around the downtown area that are constantly measuring weather and air conditions.
Chicago Data Chief Tom Schenk said during the briefing that the city is partnering with private companies to leverage the city’s data and use it to generate jobs.
Schenk said the city is currently working on a project to build a Google-like interface to “all of the city’s metadata.”
Doms said while “Big Data” analytics for many of the government’s most coveted data reports, like the monthly retail sales report, are still years away, he can envision a world where the government teams up with credit card companies or taps into scanners to create much more timely, frequent and accurate sales data reports.
Ian McKendry Writing Clips 