Economists tend to depend heavily on official government statistics to study the economy. A major downside of such data is that they are highly aggregated in nature and released with long lags. Another problem is that they are based on surveys of households or businesses, relying on the honesty and accuracy of such recollected, self-reported information.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz argues that internet data, in particular Google search data, reveal people's true feelings far more accurately than survey data do – and they provide such insights in a highly granular and real-time manner.

Join us for this important conversation and learn:

• How to tap into publicly available online data, such as Google Trends and Google Correlate, that can help inform your business and economic research;
• Some of the pitfalls (biases, inaccuracies) of survey data--where online data reveal truths that surveys/polls do not; and
• How can researchers better incorporate the insights that new and big data offer into our business and economic research? 

Who Should Attend: Business executives, strategists, and economic researchers, along with anyone who has an interest in big data and what it reveals about human behavior