Billion Prices Project
Avoiding the Big Data â Small Info Syndrome - MIT
Avoiding the Big Data â Small Info Syndrome - MIT
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<strong>Billion</strong> <strong>Prices</strong> <strong>Project</strong>:Avoiding the Big Data – Small Info SyndromeRoberto RigobonMIT Sloan, NBER, CSAC
Big distance between Data and Information!• The world is not lacking of data, it’s lacking ofinformation• Need a question before collection• Data without purpose, produces problems not information• Great Data is not a licenses for Bad Econometrics• Need to understand phenomena• Measuring is not Predicting• Correlations are hardly Causal
Inflation and Price Indexes• Alberto Cavallo• We want to produce alternative measures of inflation• We need prices• We need methodology to weight those prices• We need to understand product introductions anddiscontinuations• We need to understand store behavior• How to collect prices of products not sold on the internet?Services?
Online Information and IndexesOur Approach to Daily Inflation Statistics1 2 3 4 5Use scrapingtechnologyConnect tothousands ofonline retailersevery dayFind individualitemsStore andprocess key iteminformation in adatabaseDevelop dailyinflationstatistics for ~20countries• Date• Item• Price• Description
How do we collect data?• Our prices are collectedfrom public onlinesources, using atechnique called “webscraping”• A software downloads awebpage, analyses thehtml code, “scrapes”price data, and stores itin a database
Countries covered
Properties of Inflation Indexes• Congruence• Stores keep markups between online and offline prices relativelyconstant in the medium run• Anticipation• Online Price Indexes trends anticipate official inflation shifts.• Online prices are easier to change, retailers are morecompetitive, and consumers have less memory.• Demand trends• Changes in inflation trends by retailers reflect changes in thedemand they are facing
Argentina
USA
US RecessionSep 16 2008
US 2012
ArgentinaAnnual Inflation RatesAustraliaChina – Supermarket IndexColombia Germany IrelandRussiaUKVenezuela
Other Indexes• Natural Disaster’s Measurement• Employment• Real Estate Inflation and Capital Gains• GDP and Economic Activity
Thailand: When Help Should Be Deployed?120Product Availability In Online Retailers10080604020010/110/210/310/410/510/610/710/810/910/1010/1110/1210/1310/1410/1510/1610/1710/1810/1910/2010/2110/2210/2310/2410/2510/2610/2710/2810/2910/3010/31Notes: Product Availability normalized to 100 on 10/1/2011
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