Economics in the age of big data

Background Economic science has evolved over several decades toward greater emphasis on empirical work. The data revolution of the past decade is likely to have a further and profound effect on economic research. Increasingly, economists make use of newly available large-scale administrative data or private sector data that often are obtained through collaborations with private firms, giving rise to new opportunities and challenges. Advances These new data are affecting economic research along several dimensions. Many fields have shifted from a reliance on relatively small-sample government surveys to administrative data with universal or near-universal population coverage. This shift is transformative, as it allows researchers to rigorously examine variation in wages, health, productivity, education, and other measures across different subpopulations; construct consistent long-run statistical indices; generate new quasi-experimental research designs; and track diverse outcomes from natural and controlled experiments. Perhaps even more notable i