The Future of Central Bank Data

This article introduces a special issue of the Journal of Banking Regulation dedicated to data. The special issue is based on papers from a seminar held at the Bank of England in January 2013. In this article I examine the shift to increasingly micro-level data sets in the analysis done by central banks. This shift is explained by reference to data gaps that became manifest during the financial crisis, as well as by reference to the broader shift toward a 'big data' society. The article examines the potential trade-offs of these developments in terms of the balance between public transparency and personal privacy, and efficiency rewards from data sharing against risks posed to its security. It concludes by arguing that data has a key role to play in creating a new framework for regulation, a regime that is 'data intensive but prescriptively light,' in contrast to the previous form of financial regulation since 1979 that was data light but prescriptively heavy. Note that the article and the special issue do not necessarily express the views of the Bank of England. Views expressed are exclusively those of the author. Note that this article is published open access