We assess the usefulness of a large set of electronic payments data comprising debit and credit card transactions, as well as cheques that clear through the banking system, as potential indicators of current GDP growth. These variables capture a broad range of spending activity and are available...

"Big data" is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our daily lives as the digital sources of information and intelligence that it encompasses become more structured and more publicly available. These sources may enable the generation of new datasets providing high-frequency and timely...