New Data Sources in Macroeconomics

拟议的研究重点是调查人员最近完成的《耐用品价格的计量》一书以及他最新公布的1869- 1908年期间实际国民生产总值的数据和估计所提出的计量和实质性问题。本书将主要关注1968-84年间美国私营经济的低生产率增长。涉及生产率下降的许多概念性和实质性问题都与关于耐用品价格的系列报告直接有关，特别是计算机和其他电子设备在改变消费者和生产者服务质量方面的作用，而这种改变不包括在目前的产出措施内。除了探索先前收集的数据的含义之外，美国制造业以外的生产率增长缓慢的难题将通过为单个行业制定新的产出衡量标准来解决，研究其他主要经合组织经济体使用的不同衡量方法的影响，寻找可能揭示服务数量和质量变化的新数据。第二个重点将是关于国民生产总值的历史研究提出的问题。虽然后者仅提供了产出与趋势的周期性偏差的新措施，而不是趋势本身的新措施，但它仍发现了新的数据来源，将改善对这些趋势的估计。此外，它还揭示了在1919年至1923年这一第一次世界大战后的重要时期，在衡量实际产出和价格方面存在令人困惑的矛盾，这些矛盾需要通过原始数据来解决。解决反映1920-21年经济衰退深度的主要指标之间的冲突，对于理解1929-33年的问题是极其重要的。第三个问题是，从里斯的经典研究（1961年）结束到1947年（耐用品书所涵盖的时期开始）这段时间内，价格数据的状况令人不满意。经济活动的历史指标和当前指标的改进的总体意义在于，它们为有效分析宏观经济学的核心问题创造了更强的能力。

The proposed research centers on measurement and substantive issues raised by the investigator's recently completed book, The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices, as well as by his newly released data and estimates on real GNP covering the period 1869- 1908. The primary focus will be on the low rate of productivity growth in the U.S. private economy in the 1968-84 interval. Many of the conceptual and substantive questions involving the productivity slowdown are directly related to the series on durable goods prices, particularly the role of computers and other electronic equipment in changing the quality of consumer and producer services in ways that do not enter present measures of output. In addition to exploring the implications of previously collected data, the puzzle of slow productivity growth outside of manufacturing in the U.S. will be addressed by developing new output measures for individual industries, studying the effects of different methods of measurement used in other major OECD economies, and searching for new data that may reveal changes in the quantity and quality of services. A secondary focus will be on issues raised by the historical research on GNP. While the latter provided new measures only of cyclical deviations of output from trend, not of the trend itself, it yet uncovered new data sources that will improve estimates of those trends. Also, it revealed puzzling contradictions in the measurement of real output and prices in the important period after World War I, 1919-23, which need to be addressed by primary data. Resolution of the conflict between major indicators of the depth of the 1920-21 recession is extremely important in developing an understanding of what went wrong in 1929-33. A third issue is the unsatisfactory state of price data during the period between the end of Rees' classic (1961) study and 1947, when the period covered by the durable goods book begins. The overall significance of the improvements in the historical as well as the more current indicators of economic activity is the increased capability they create for the effective analysis of the central problems of macroeconomics.