example, if employees of high - exporting firms are less vulnerable to 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches unemployment during recessions ; or one could study the variation in the impact of social networks on the productivity of individual workers, across different countries and cultures. 2. a second challenge is to attain a relevant degree of coverage in the information captured. this means one must be able to map diverse microdata sets into aggregate statistics. the challenge here comes from the fact that microdata sets are collected for different purposes, making it hard to ensure integrity and compatibility. the ultimate goal must be to build a network of microdata sets, managed autonomously by different institutions, potentially from different countries, yet connected through a common language platform, ensuring secure access and agile correspondence. this would decisively improve our understanding of economic mechanisms such as : the pass - through from import prices to domestic prices ; or the connection between international credit supply and investment. 3. in my view, microdata poses a third challenge : the need to revisit the statistical authorities ’ mandate. in the new domain of microdata, authorities must not only produce aggregate statistics, but also preserve, maintain and provide the underlying microdata. banco de portugal already faces all these challenges, through the microdata lab established in oporto – bplim. our lab started operating in 2016 with the aim of making our microdata data sets freely available to the research community in general. until the end of last year, a total of 109 research projects started, involving more than 160 researchers. about 80 percent of these researchers are external to banco de portugal, and in more than one third of these cases, they are associated with international research institutions. but we need other statistical authorities to join us, in order to have microdata sets that encompass the whole socio - economic reality. cooperation between statistical authorities will also help with the development of common methods and tools and the identification of best practices. by ensuring strong quality standards in collection, maintenance, treatment and access to public - interest microdata, statistical authorities will provide the best public response to private digital platforms. these private platforms collect, use and sell microdata, without any form of public control or public - interest orientation. only through public platforms of anonymised, representative and controlled microdata can our society mitigate the competitive advantage of big techs. this means that the only interesting strategy to face information monopolies held by private

to sustain one even when government debt was running down ( e. g. australia ). in the east asian region outside japan, the local currency bond markets collectively are thought to be about us $ 1. 1 trillion in terms of total stock outstanding, up from around us $ 350 billion a decade or so ago. that is a sizeable sum, but of course it is dispersed around a number of countries in what are essentially a series of local markets. some countries in the region have first - rate financial infrastructure - legal and regulatory frameworks, trading platforms, clearing and settlement systems, and taxation arrangements. other countries need, in the opinion of expert observers, more work to lift the quality of their infrastructure. moreover, to develop a genuine regional market, in which savers and investors in the region can transact on a common set of arrangements, requires attention to harmonisation of many of these aspects of financial infrastructure. all of this is worth doing. the potential financing needs of some of the middle - income but fast - growing economies like china are very large indeed. to that could be added, if we shift our gaze a bit further west, the large and growing economic size of india. hence there is likely to be significant pay - off to efforts to develop better functioning markets. a question which arises at this point is whether the priority should be at regional level, in efforts to develop a regional, cross - border market, or at the level of individual countries, developing their own markets. efforts on both fronts are surely needed. a regional market would offer some efficiencies and enhancements to issuers and investors, but would have to be underpinned by the individual country components. it is in each country ’ s own interest to improve the functioning of their own market in any event. so the case for local initiatives is clear. but the push to take part in a regional project may well create the sort of dynamic which is helpful in overcoming obstacles at the national level, and the collective and individual outcomes will be stronger the more effectively market practices, and regulatory and legal issues can be harmonised at a ‘ best practice ’ standard. hence, done with good sense, it seems to me that local and regional efforts should be able to be consistent and mutually reinforcing. co - operative efforts have been initiated by various groupings to try to identify, and hopefully remove, the various structural impediments and to put in place some things which might accelerate market development. work under