Measuring Consumer Spending Using Card Transaction Data: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abe Dunn, Kyle Hood, Andrea Batch and Alex Driessen

AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2021, vol. 111, 321-25

Abstract: Pandemic-driven economic changes are measurable in days and weeks rather than months and years, underscoring a need for more timely economic data to inform the public. We summarize newly available estimates of spending using card transaction data that are available on the Bureau of Economic Analysis website and analyze correlations between card data and official series. We find that card data perform well in measuring large changes in the economy around the pandemic, although the correlations are much lower during a period of stability prior to the pandemic. This pattern is likely attributable to a shift in the signal-to-noise ratio over these periods.

JEL-codes: C81 C82 D10 E20 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20211049

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