New Data Sources in Macroeconomics

拟议的研究集中在调查人员最近完成的著作《耐用品价格的衡量》以及他新发布的1869-1908年期间实际国民生产总值的数据和估计所提出的衡量和实质性问题。主要焦点将是1968-84年期间美国私营经济生产率增长率较低的问题。涉及生产率放缓的许多概念性和实质性问题与耐用品价格系列直接相关，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，而这些方式没有计入目前的产出衡量标准。除了探索之前收集的数据的影响外，美国制造业以外生产率增长缓慢的谜题将通过为个别行业开发新的产出指标、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，以及寻找可能揭示服务数量和质量变化的新数据来解决。第二个重点将放在国民生产总值历史研究提出的问题上。虽然后者只提供了产出与趋势的周期性偏差的新衡量标准，而不是趋势本身，但它还发现了新的数据来源，将改善对这些趋势的估计。此外，它还揭示了在第一次世界大战后的重要时期(1919-23年)在实际产出和价格衡量方面令人费解的矛盾，这些矛盾需要通过原始数据来解决。解决1920-21年衰退深度的主要指标之间的冲突，对于理解1929-33年的问题极其重要。第三个问题是，从Rees的经典研究(1961)结束到1947年耐用品账簿所涵盖的时期开始的这段时间内，价格数据的状况不令人满意。历史指标和更新的经济活动指标的改善的总体意义在于，它们提高了有效分析宏观经济中心问题的能力。

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.