The Billion Prices Project: Using Online Prices for Measurement and Research
Author(s)
Cavallo, Alberto F.; Rigobon, Roberto
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New data-gathering techniques, often referred to as “Big Data” have the potential to improve statistics and empirical research in economics. In this paper we describe our work with online data at the Billion Prices Project at MIT and discuss key lessons for both inflation measurement and some fundamental research questions in macro and international economics. In particular, we show how online prices can be used to construct daily price indexes in multiple countries and to avoid measurement biases that distort evidence of price stickiness and international relative prices. We emphasize how Big Data technologies are providing macro and international
economists with opportunities to stop treating the data as “given” and to get
directly involved with data collection.
Date issued
2016-05Department
Sloan School of ManagementJournal
Journal of Economic Perspectives
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Cavallo, Alberto, and Roberto Rigobon. “The Billion Prices Project: Using Online Prices for Measurement and Research.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30.2 (2016): 151–178.
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
0895-3309
1944-7965