Economic Measurement Research Institute

The Economic Measurement Research Institute (EMRI), which is supported by the National Science Foundation, promotes research on the measurement of prices, output, labor market outcomes, technology, and related concepts, as well as demonstration projects that will lead to the implementation of new approaches to the creation of official economic statistics. EMRI projects will produce cutting edge research on economic measurement and new methods for leveraging large-scale “naturally occurring data”—i.e., data created by businesses, households, non-profit institutions, and governments during the course of their normal activities—for economic measurement and analysis. This research targets the creation of the knowledge and methods needed to re-engineer the existing system of official statistics so that the methods for data collection, construction, and dissemination are based on 21st century information technology to effectively measure the 21st century economy. The research will produce new methods for capturing how fundamental changes in technologies affect economic outcomes for households and businesses, and how technological change affects the structure of the economy and its overall performance. 

The EMRI will initiate and support research collaborations among federal statistical agencies, the business community, and academic experts in order to advance the development of new economic measures with an emphasis on tracking the economic effects of technical change and scientific advances. 

The EMRI is currently supporting research in four areas:

1) How measurement of retail spending and inflation can be redesigned to make use of item-level transactions data to value technologically driven and other quality changes embedded in retail goods.

2) Integration of administrative and American Community Survey data to produce new statistics on the gig economy.

3) Use of new information on income statements of businesses to lay the groundwork for improving the measurement of intangible capital to account for investments in R&D.

4) Linking of data from the NSF Business R&D and Innovation Survey to other business data housed at the Census Bureau to generate new estimates of the contribution of R&D to productivity growth in manufacturing.  

It also will support additional research projects on economic measurement based on an open call for proposals, make data purchase grants to encourage exploration and use of new data sources to support new or improved economic measures, and host annual research conferences to foster collaborations that will improve economic statistics.