NY Fed research head calls for data innovation

More imagination and thought are needed in identifying and creating useful data for central banks to utilise in their operations, according to James McAndrews, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's director of research.

McAndrews, speaking at a conference in New York, said that data innovation is one of two main challenges central bankers face when looking to use data effectively, the other being data stewardship.

"With data innovation, the big challenge is to use our imagination and to think hard about what data may be able to say about a particular problem," he said. "This includes both novel uses of existing data as well as the collection of new data".

McAndrews pointed to the New York Fed's new survey of consumer expectations, launched last month, which seeks to measure an individual's beliefs about the likelihood of future outcomes, thereby capturing how certain or uncertain the person is about future events.

The survey is the outcome of a five-year research project involving economists, psychologists and survey design experts. McAndrews stressed that data innovation "benefits from the collaboration of people with diverse skills and backgrounds".

Data stewardship, on the other hand, is about making it easy to "find, trust, use, and share the data". This requires the detailed documentation of the data sources and content. This, according to McAndrews, is "vital for preserving institutional memory", which can be lost when key personnel leave.