Using New Forms of Information for Official Economic Statistics -- Examining the Commodity Flow Survey : Executive Summary from the 1rst Workshop in the Census-MIT Big Data Workshop Series

Broad new sources of information have the potential to bring increased granularity, detail and timeliness to the next generation of official statistics -- while reducing survey burden.The next generation of official statistics will utilize broad sources of information, potentially linked together, to provide increasing granularity, detail, and timeliness, while reducing cost and burden. Utilizing big data requires creating new relationships with businesses. Many of the primary sources of big data are businesses that use data intensively to guide decisions: Big data sources are also critical stakeholders. In order to obtain access to data from businesses that create and use it, it is critical to both provide a value proposition to the business and to develop a trust relationship