Back in May, we wrote about the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has massively accelerated the introduction of technological innovation, including more use and reporting of real-time/high-frequency economic data. Given the nature of the crisis, the traditional monthly economic releases became essentially useless for companies, analysts, policymakers, and financial market participants seeking updates on the immediate effects of the crisis to garner any appropriate response. Waiting a month or more to make more informed decisions simply was not feasible. As a result, companies such as Google, Apple, Homebase, TomTom, and a number of others, including the U.S. Census Bureau, began releasing much more timely data—most of which had been kept private or behind a paywall.
In this Economics Weekly, we reexamine some of this data to assess where we are in the current recovery.
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Richard de Chazal, CFA is a London-based macroeconomist covering the U.S. economy and financial markets.