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  5. Innovations in Economic Measurement
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Innovations in Economic Measurement

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (CST)

Grand Hyatt, Lone Star Ballroom Salon C
Hosted By: American Economic Association & Committee on Economic Statistics
  • Chair: Karen Dynan, Harvard University

Transistors All the Way Down: Viability of Direct Volume Measurement (and Price Indexes) for Semiconductors

David M. Byrne
,
Federal Reserve Board
Adrian Hamins-Puertolas
,
Federal Reserve Board
Molly M. Harnish
,
Federal Reserve Board

Abstract

The semiconductor (solid-state electronics) industry is a prime example of global production sharing, of the translation of basic research into productivity, and of the power of a general-purpose technology to
boost macroeconomic growth. Study of these questions requires measures of industry output and prices that are complete and consistent across time, economies, and product types. Such data are not currently available. We solve this problem by measuring volume directly, relying on plant-level measures of capacity, industry utilization, and easily observed parameters for the state of technology. That is, we
do not rely on estimation of constant-quality price indexes, which are the primary source of time-series, cross-sectional, and cross-product inconsistency for semiconductor industry measurement. We construct quarterly-frequency output indexes and implicit prices for key semiconductor product classes for five economies spanning the 1996-2022 period. Our results compare favorably to official measures for time periods and economies where measurement is believed to be reliable. In other cases, our output and price measures are appreciably different from official measures and suggest rather different stylized facts for the global industry.

Measuring Consumer Credit Conditions

Claire Brennecke
,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Brian Bucks
,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Christa Gibbs
,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Michelle Kambara
,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Samantha LeBuhn
,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Caroline Ratcliffe
,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Abstract

Existing measures of consumer credit conditions provide insight into how credit markets are functioning broadly, but they may not reflect how the “typical” consumer is faring and do not capture the range of consumers’ situations. To address this, we have developed new consumer credit measures that are more consumer-focused. The new measures are also more responsive than existing metrics to changes in consumers’ experiences. Our new measures of available credit, delinquency, and credit access are built from deidentified consumer credit record data so they can be constructed both nationally and for a variety of subgroups. Further, they can be calculated retroactively and on an on-going basis. The proposed paper discusses approaches for combining them into a comprehensive index of consumer credit conditions and highlight persistent differences in credit conditions across groups of consumers as captured by differences in their median index values. We also show that consumers experience a fair amount of volatility in their credit conditions over time. An index of this sort provides an objective and comprehensive measure of consumers’ credit conditions that can be readily decomposed and compared across subgroups so researchers and policymakers can better understand consumers’ credit situations and how they vary by, for example, race, income, age, and geography to improve consumers’ credit outcomes.

New Evidence on Consumption and Income Dynamics from a Consumer Payment Diary

Scott Schuh
,
West Virginia University
Shaun Gilyard
,
West Virginia University

Abstract

This paper extends and refines the finding (Schuh, 2018) that daily transaction-level consumer payments in the 2012 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC) cover a high percentage of U.S. personal consumption expenditures through 2020 with improved measurement. The DCPC now includes household and respondent income, which also cover high percentages of U.S. personal disposable income. Novel estimates of a benchmark PIH model with daily DCPC data are consistent with the literature but provide new insights about consumption and expected income dynamics. Results suggest that potential selection effects may arise in convenience samples of transaction data sources. Relative to “big” transactions data, the DCPC has four advantages: 1) more representative of U.S. consumers; 2) publicly available; 3) continuous improvements in measurement; and 4) flexible real-time opportunities for implementation.

Closing the Gaps: The Role of Screening Questions and Self-Reporting in Measuring Women’s and Young People’s Employment and Work

Ivette Contreras
,
World Bank
Valentina Costa
,
World Bank
Lelys Dinarte-Diaz
,
World Bank
Amparo Palacios-Lopez
,
World Bank
Steffanny Romero
,
World Bank

Abstract

Women and youth are severely underrepresented in the global labor market. We study if undermeasurement of women’s and youth’s labor market outcomes partially explains existing gender and age employment gaps. To this end, we designed a survey experiment to assess how either using a list of activities survey module (LOA) or enforcing self-reporting affect the measurement of work and employment by gender and age. Using data from 1,008 households and 2,480 working-age respondents in El Salvador, we show that including the LOA increases the average reporting of work by women relative to the men and other women who were not exposed to the LOA module. Although enforced self-reporting has no effects on the average reporting of employment and work, it effectively increases the reporting of these outcomes by young males relative to older males who were also exposed to the same enforcement. In fact, proxy reporting yields lower male working rates than self-reporting. These results have important implications for addressing the undermeasurement of women’s and youths’ labor outcomes in official statistics, and they also explain to some degree current gender and age employment gaps.

Discussant(s)
Bart Hobijn
,
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Laura Feiveson
,
U.S. Treasury Department
Martha A. Starr
,
American Economic Association
Shoshana Grossbard
,
San Diego State University
JEL Classifications
  • C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs