##down be an artifact of antiquated measurement? third, how tight is the labor market? given our mandate of maximum employment and price stability, this question is at the very core of our work. but answering it in real time in a dynamic economy as jobs are gained in one area but lost in others is remarkably challenging. in august, the bureau of labor statistics ( bls ) announced that job gains over the year through march were likely a half - million lower than previously reported. i will discuss how we are using big data to improve our grasp of the job market in the face of such revisions. these three quite varied questions highlight the broad range of issues that currently come under the simple heading “ data dependent. ” after exploring them, i will comment briefly on recent developments in money markets and on monetary policy. a century of industrial production our story of data dependence in the face of change begins when the fed opened for business in 1914. world war i was breaking out in europe, and over the next four years the war would fuel profound growth and transformation in the u. s. economy. 1 but you could not have seen this change in the gross national product data ; the department of commerce did not publish those until 1942. the census bureau had been running a hugh rockoff ( 2004 ) analyzes the change that accompanied a 44 - month expansion starting in 1914. - 3census of manufactures since 1905, but that came only every five years — an eternity in the rapidly changing economy. in need of more timely information, the fed began creating and publishing a series of industrial output reports that soon evolved into industrial production indexes. 2 the indexes initially comprised 22 basic commodities, chosen in part because they covered the major industrial groups, but also for the practical reason that data were available with less than a one - month lag. the fed ’ s efforts were among the earliest in creating timely measures of aggregate production. over the century of its existence, our industrial production team has remained at the frontier of economic measurement, using the most advanced techniques to monitor u. s. industry and nimbly track changes in production. what are the consequences of an oil price spike? let ’ s turn now to the first question of the consequences of an oil price spike. figure 1 shows u. s. oil production since 1920. after rising fairly steadily through the early 1970s, production began a long period of gradual decline. by 2005, production was at about the same level as it had been 50 years

##ed to the united states, which, in lowering financial constraints, amplified the current account deficit of this country. one may actually wonder whether this also partly contributed to the development of a financial bubble in the united states. the key idea i would like to take from this literature is that finance most certainly played a key role in the emergence of global imbalances. how and why may the g20 roadmap help financial soundness and global rebalancing as the global economy is recovering from the crisis, the g20 roadmap aims first at ensuring the transition to a strong, sustainable and balanced growth. by “ strong ”, we mean that growth should converge to the growth rate of potential output over the medium term whereas that potential is enhanced by the implementation of more effective structural policies. “ sustainable ” growth should be consistent with public finance sustainability, price and financial stability, along with social and environmental policy goals. finally, “ balanced ” growth implies a growth that is broadly based across all g20 countries and all regions in the world, and as i said earlier, that should not generate persistent and destabilizing internal or external imbalances. “ balanced ” growth also implies to facilitate the catching up of developing countries ( and the taking off of the poorest ). drawing the lessons from the crisis, growth cannot be strong without being sustainable and cannot be sustainable if it is not balanced. the so - called “ framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth ” is the key mechanism by which g20 countries work together to achieve these objectives. with support from the imf, g20 countries are going through a mutual assessment process by sharing their policy frameworks, programs and projections and assessing their consistency with the common objectives. this process will lead the g20 to recommend policy options to its members. policy options obviously depend on national circumstances. countries facing serious fiscal challenges need in particular to accelerate the pace of fiscal consolidation, while countries that have the capacity should expand domestic sources of growth and help cushion a decline in demand from other countries. reforms of social safety nets will be essential in both cases and structural reforms of the product and labor markets will be key to foster stronger growth in the medium and long run. policy options may also entail exchange rate adjustments consistent with smooth rebalancing. in search of global financial safety nets there is another side to rebalancing where finance matters. starting with the asian crisis of 1997 – 1998 and up until the global shortage of liquidity that took