Big Data in Macroeconomics

Big data describe new and unconventional data sources. Data from these sources usually exhibit a high volume, are often unstructured, and are available in real-time and at high frequency. They are very complex because they are not collected for the purpose of economic analysis, but are by-products of various applications. Many of these new data sources contain transactions or prices (electronic payment, transactions, scanner data, trading platforms) or reflect current economic activity in other ways (satellite images, traffic data). Other data sources reflect sentiments and interests of users (social media, internet search queries, press articles). They are less closely related to the current economic development, but they can be used to build indicators that provide more comprehensive information than existing indicators or that cannot be constructed with conventional data sources. Against this backdrop, the conference discusses the potential of big data for macroeconomic analysis from different perspectives.