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International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
This technical assistance mission collaborated with the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics in Peru to incorporate big data methods into compilation of the consumer price index (CPI). This includes both prices ingested from the websites of large retailers and data recorded through in-store checkout scanners.
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
Swift and decisive policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic has helped to mitigate the health and economic impact of the crisis. Fast vaccination rollout has also strengthened the economy’s resilience to new pandemic waves, paving the way for a speedy recovery. As the economy rebounds, a gradual exit from pandemic support measures is underway.
Mr. Paul A Austin
,
Mr. Marco Marini
,
Alberto Sanchez
,
Chima Simpson-Bell
, and
James Tebrake
As the pandemic heigthened policymakers’ demand for more frequent and timely indicators to assess economic activities, traditional data collection and compilation methods to produce official indicators are falling short—triggering stronger interest in real time data to provide early signals of turning points in economic activity. In this paper, we examine how data extracted from the Google Places API and Google Trends can be used to develop high frequency indicators aligned to the statistical concepts, classifications, and definitions used in producing official measures. The approach is illustrated by use of Google data-derived indicators that predict well the GDP trajectories of selected countries during the early stage of COVID-19. To this end, we developed a methodological toolkit for national compilers interested in using Google data to enhance the timeliness and frequency of economic indicators.
Mr. Jorge A Chan-Lau
We introduce unFEAR, Unsupervised Feature Extraction Clustering, to identify economic crisis regimes. Given labeled crisis and non-crisis episodes and the corresponding features values, unFEAR uses unsupervised representation learning and a novel mode contrastive autoencoder to group episodes into time-invariant non-overlapping clusters, each of which could be identified with a different regime. The likelihood that a country may experience an econmic crisis could be set equal to its cluster crisis frequency. Moreover, unFEAR could serve as a first step towards developing cluster-specific crisis prediction models tailored to each crisis regime.
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, &amp
and
Review Department
The first data and statistics strategy for the Fund comes at a critical time. A fast-changing data landscape, new data needs for evolving surveillance priorities, and persisting data weaknesses across the membership pose challenges and opportunities for the Fund and its members. The challenges emerging from the digital revolution include an unprecedented amount of new data and measurement questions on growth, productivity, inflation, and welfare. Newly available granular and high-frequency (big) data offer the potential for more timely detection of vulnerabilities. In the wake of the crisis, Fund surveillance requires greater cross-country data comparability; staff and authorities face the complexity of integrating new data sources and closing data gaps, while working to address the weaknesses noted by the IEO Report (Behind the Scenes with Data at the IMF) in 2016. The overarching strategy is to move toward an ecosystem of data and statistics that enables the Fund and its members to better meet the evolving data needs in a digital world. It integrates Fund-wide work streams on data provision to the Fund for surveillance purposes, international statistical standards, capacity development, and data management under a common institutional objective. It seeks seamless access and sharing of data within the Fund, enabling cloud-based data dissemination to support data provision by member countries (e.g., the “global data commons”), closing data gaps with new sources including Big Data, and improving assessments of data adequacy for surveillance to help better prioritize capacity development. The Fund also will work with policymakers to understand the implications of the digital economy and digital data for the macroeconomic statistics, including new measures of welfare beyond GDP.
International Monetary Fund
This paper discusses key findings of the Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes on Data Module for Pakistan. Based on the review of Pakistan’s statistical practices, recommendations are made that are aimed at strengthening Pakistan’s adherence to the internationally accepted practices, as well as at enhancing the usefulness of its monetary statistics. For the central bank’s survey, it is recommended to revalue the State Bank of Pakistan’s Fund positions and gold assets on a monthly basis at end-month market exchange rates and market gold prices.
Abdulrahman K Al-Mansouri
and
Ms. Claudia H Dziobek
The six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE)-have laid out a path to a common market by 2007 and monetary union by 2010, based on economic convergence. To monitor convergence and support economic and monetary policy, comparable economic data for member countries and data for the region as a whole will be essential. What is the most efficient way to produce these data? The authors survey the statistical institutions in the GCC countries and present the case for creating "Gulfstat"-a regional statistical agency to operate within a "Gulf States System of Statistics." Valuable lessons can be learned from regional statistical organization in Africa and the European Union-Afristat and Eurostat.