supervisory purposes in the initial stages of the project, the information will also be very useful in many areas of banking supervision. i am thinking in particular of the information on the link between lenders and the unique identification of counterparties across the entire lender population. the use of big data in policy analysis let me now turn to the broader issue of the use by central banks of technology - driven data. an early and prominent example of online data being used for policy analysis is the “ billion prices project ”, which was launched by the massachusetts institute of technology ( mit ) in 2008. 12 today, the project publishes daily online price indices for more than 20 countries, based on a technology called “ web scraping ”, where price information is collected automatically by machine from hundreds of retailers that also have physical outlets. by 2015, about 15 million prices were being collected every day from 900 retailers. the advantages for policymakers are plain to see. online inflation data, if of high quality, are much timelier than current price statistics and may cover a much larger number of products. eurostat currently collects, via the national statistical institutes, roughly three million prices for the harmonised index of consumer prices every month in the 28 eu member states and it 3 / 9 bis central bankers'speeches publishes the index 17 days after the end of each month. online price data can therefore be used to improve short - term forecasts and to check the robustness and reliability of current price indices. mixed - frequency models, for example, could be used to enhance existing forecast models that are based on monthly data. sveriges riksbank has already tested the use of online price data. the results indicate that the data add value when it comes to forecasting short - term developments in consumer prices for fruit and vegetables. 13 preliminary explorative analysis at the ecb confirms the predictive power of online price data, provided they are sufficiently granular. this suggests that online prices may complement existing price data. daily online data can also add significant value to policymaking in periods of high uncertainty. as research has shown, would the full billion prices project data have been available in 2008, the turning point in us inflation following the demise of lehman brothers could have been identified months before it showed up in the official us consumer price index. 14 online prices are, however, only one source of potential interest for policymakers. large - scale barcode scanner data, for example, are an alternative avenue that researchers at the ecb have

a time as is required, and we stand ready to use unconventional measures of quantitative easing to assure european firms and consumers access to credit at appropriate conditions. as for fiscal policy, the necessity of a large and timely stimulus package is most obvious. olivier blanchard and others from the imf 6 explained concisely late last year how such a stimulus package should look like. it should be broad - based as the crisis will hit each economy as a whole ; it should be fairly long - term as this crisis won ’ t go away next quarter ; and it should be supported by as many countries as possible as this is a global crisis and it is not the time for beggar - my - neighbor policies. although the automatic stabilizers in most european countries help to adjust for the loss in effective demand, some additional discretionary spending is now needed. the crisis also highlighted differences between the eu and the u. s. in terms of fiscal policy. while the two regions are roughly comparable in economic size, the eu lacks a federal budget like the u. s. in times of crisis, when timely and targeted action is warranted, the eu with its budget of 1 % of total gdp is rather shiftless compared to the u. s. federal budget of more than 20 % of gdp. in terms of fiscal policy, european countries are mostly on their own when fighting recessions. like in the u. s., not all states within the eu are affected in the same way by the crisis ; but those eu member states which are hit most severely by the crisis now are also the ones which will amass high budget deficits very quickly and therefore find it harder to finance their stimulus spending. some of the new eu member states have been affected rather harshly by the crisis already, and unfortunately it has not been understood yet by all remaining countries that assisting those countries is not only an act of european solidarity, but that it is also in their economic interest to support those countries which have relatively high import demand for their products. like in the so - called “ tequila crisis ” of 1995, it was not immediately understood by all politicians in washington that helping mexico was in the best interest of the u. s., but thankfully those in charge in the administration knew how to deal with the situation. it also took some time before policy makers in europe did recognize that it was in the best interest of europe to pave the way for a european initiative for economic stabilization and recovery. for instance, the european council at