Philadelphia Fed CEO Harker discusses the importance of historical data to understand economy

Speaking recently before an audience of researchers and economists, Patrick Harker, CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia cited the importance of using historical data to understand today’s economy.

At the speech, Harker introduced the Philadelphia Fed’s Center for the REstoration of Economic Data (CREED), which provides the public with digitized versions of historical, previously inaccessible data and methods to conduct timely economic and policy-relevant research.

“What we need more of right now is this proper historic economic perspective. And this is where the CREED effort will really shine,” Harker said. “Simply put, the promise of CREED is to use the technology of today to unlock the past — an oftentimes forgotten past.”

CREED converts information in old books, maps, and other analog formats into publicly available digital data using machine learning and research expertise from the Philadelphia Fed’s Consumer Finance Institute and Research Department.

CREED’s current collection of data features aspects of the housing market, including the Historical Housing Prices Project. The Historical Housing Prices Project provides new data on the price of housing for sale and for rent over the 20th century using the real estate sections of historical newspapers from 30 major cities.

It also features the Racial Covenants interactive map, which shows the use of language added to deeds that prevented non-Whites from buying or renting property in Philadelphia.

CREED plans to expand its digitization efforts to include analog sources that can shed light on a variety of topics such as business formation and the intergenerational transmission of wealth.

Harker’s presentation was called “From Rasters to Rows: New Methods and Applications in Automated Data Extraction.” It was made in Philadelphia at a conference hosted by the Philadelphia Fed.

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