Keynote: Lousy Data, Lousy Decisions

Event Overview

Ironically, the Information Age poses threats to the official statistics and information infrastructure that we rely on to guide our most important policy, business, and personal decisions. The outcomes of our laws and decisions can only be as sound as the data that informs them.

Statistical agencies are confronting falling survey response rates, poor funding, privacy concerns, and attacks on their independence. We’re facing a slow-moving problem that’s quickly headed toward crisis unless we intervene and retool our data infrastructure. At the same time, new data sources, cheap hardware, and novel software are generating big opportunities that we can capitalize on in the very near term.

To craft a 21st-century national data infrastructure, Cornell ILR School’s Erica Groshen says we need to create new, blended data statistical products and adopt data standards to meet these myriad challenges. There’s a path forward, but it’ll take strong political will and a national focus to correct the course.

What You'll Learn

The threats and opportunities for federal statistics
Why these statistics matter
How to build a 21st-century national data infrastructure with blended data and data standards
How you can take steps to try and avoid this looming issue

Speaker

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Erica Groshen

Senior Economics Advisor, ILR Labor Dynamics Institute

Cornell ILR School

Senior Economics Advisor, ILR Labor Dynamics Institute, ILR School, Cornell University

Erica Groshen is Senior Economics Advisor in the ILR Labor Dynamics Institute in Cornell’s ILR School and research fellow at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. From 2013 to 2017, she served as the 14th commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the principal federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and inflation. Before that, Dr. Groshen was vice president in the Research and Statistics Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Her research has centered on jobless recoveries, wage rigidity and dispersion, and the role of employers in the labor market.

Dr. Groshen is the lead author of “Preparing U.S. Workers and Employers for an Autonomous Vehicle Future,” with Susan Helper, John Paul MacDuffie, and Charles Carson. She also co-authored “How New is the ‘New Employment Contract’?” from W.E. Upjohn Institute Press and co-edited “Structural Changes in U.S. Labor Markets: Causes and Consequences” from M.E. Sharpe, Inc. Dr. Groshen received the 2017 Susan C. Eaton Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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