Big data and Economics: Opportunity and challenges for Policy Makers

Abstract

Big Data is usually characterized by data whose volume, velocity, diversity, and complexity require new techniques, algorithms, statistics and analytics to manage it and extract value and hidden knowledge from it. Over the past few years, Big data have reached an unprecedented level of popularity and is playing a leading role in solving various problems in business, medicine and social value creation. What is particularly fascinating is the recent use of big data in policy making, to what we call now "data Driven Policy Making". In resource constrained environment where censuses and household surveys are rare, big data creates an option for gathering localized and timely information at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. Big data is also becoming very popular in Economics.