One of the biggest shifts going on in economics is the growing use of digital data for research.
The Internet and cloud computing platforms are generating large amounts of digital data on pretty much all areas of business and economics.
In fact, the amount data is growing much faster than our ability to analyze and use it.
In our work we've seen a clear shift to using digital data and away from our traditional sources - surveys and government produced data.
Yes, we still use traditional data sources more than digital data. But we think in a few years our use of digital data will dwarf our use of surveys and government data.
A good example of this shift comes from LinkedIn. They recently held an "Economic Graph Challenge" where researchers submitted research proposals that would use LinkedIn's vast array of data to study various economic issues.
They selected 11 winning teams and each will get access to LinkedIn data and a $25,000 research grant. The research teams - mostly academics - will crunch LinkedIn data in hopes of drawing some new insights on the global economy and job markets.
The shift to digital data for economic research is very exciting. We have several projects underway on the on-demand economy that are tapping into online digital data. We'll have more to say on this topic in the coming months.
LinkedIn's presentation below provides more information on the winning proposals.
Comments