Miggroprices

The increasing availability of comprehensive micro data sets, conceptional progress in dealing with idiosyncratic heterogeneity and considerably improved computational facilities have boosted research efforts analyzing (large volumes of) granular data to obtain macroeconomicoriented insights. This work comprises both theoretical as well as empirical contributions and covers topics in the fields of standard macroeconomics, monetary economics, international economics, public economics, ...

The MIGGROPRICES initiative aims at fostering this type of research activities by catalyzing the distribution   of novel and very comprehensive (“big data”) sets of micro prices (at the retail product level) to individual researchers and institutions conducting research in this field. Please find more information on Miggroprices and in case that your are interest in joining the Miggroprices team and getting access to unieque scanner price data at http://www.miggroprices.eu

World Price Monitor (WPM, joint project with Xavier Jaravel, LSE)

Accurate price measurement is crucial for social welfare. Prices govern the purchasing power of households’ wages and wealth and play an important role in the decision-making process of many institutions, such as central banks (monetary policy), local and national governments (welfare programs, public pension systems), labor unions (wage negotiations), firms (local wage compensation), as well as statistical offices and international organizations.

The World Price Monitor (WPM) research initiative aims at improving price measures and our understanding of price dynamics along several dimensions. More specifically, thanks to very detailed scanner data we are computing householdspecific or region-specific prices indices, with accurate quality-adjustments. Additionally, we use scanner data to differentiate between “effective” and “recorded” price inflation, i.e. price changes actually paid by households, in contrast with price changes observed for products that stay on the shelves in supermarkets. Finally, the rich set of available variables and observations makes it possible to study the determinants of the observed price dynamics across households and locations.

SME Policy Forum

“The SME Policy Form” is organized as an invitation-only event and is planned to take place annually. Its target audience comprise influential professionals from academia, policy, the press and senior expert practitioners. It aims at becoming a focal meeting place for the community, providing a unique opportunity for a public exchange of views and analysis with leading experts and decision makers in the field. Moreover, the conference is open to the press and is supposed to attract substantial interest from the media.

The next event is planned for spring 2020. A preliminary draft program will be made available in fall 2019.