Making Drill Down Analysis of the Economy a Reality

Abstract

To address core questions in social science, analysts need to be able to drill down from key aggregates (as examples, economic indicators like productivity, job creation, and unemployment) to the person and business level with rich contextual information about person and business characteristics. Such drill down capability need to be accessible to the social science research and policy communities without jeopardizing the privacy and confidentiality of person and business level data. Much progress has already been made but there are significant bureaucratic, legal, and methodological challenges to achieve the vision of drill down analysis.