The Age of Big Data:

The Development and Applications of Alternative Data in Economic and Financial Markets

INTRODUCTION

Quality information on socioeconomic activities is key for guiding the allocation of scarce resources and designing sound government policies to sustain economic growth and improve human livelihoods. Traditional measures, e.g., collected through censuses and householder surveys, are expensive and hysteretic. Researchers from various fields have attempted to use novel sources of passively collected data to overcome these challenges and improve the quality of economic measures. This talk will introduce the development of alternative data sources in the measurement of economic activities and how they influence the financial markets and corporate decision making.