Big Data in Economics

Here you can see impressions of our successful annual conference 2022 in Basel. We would like to thank all those who reviewed, presented, discussed, exhibited and, above all, organised in Basel.

Core Conference: Big Data in Economics

The availability of massive datasets on economic choices of individuals and firms, from administrative and corporate sources, changes empirical research in the social sciences fundamentally.

Economists and statisticians develop new methods that provide new answers to old-standing empirical questions and allow for much faster and granular research. At the same time, new data and methods also change the way administrations and firms work, which creates new and challenging questions for public policy.

Keynotes

The keynote lectures shed light on various aspects of using big data in economics research. Raj Chetty (Harvard University) explains how administrative data such as tax filings can be used to understand the heterogeneous effects of macroeconomic shocks and public policies on individuals and to construct real-time diagnostics of the economy. Raffaella Sadun (Harvard Business School) focuses on how managers use the large amounts of data their firms generate in such areas as human resource management. Michael Lechner (University of St. Gallen) explores research opportunities that arise from combining machine-learning methods with large administrative datasets to identify the causal effects of public policies. A panel discussion will review opportunities and challenges of using big data in economic research in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.