This article discusses the 5th annual conference on “Nontraditional Data, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing in Macroeconomics” which brings together academics and practitioners to think carefully about the conceptual framework used to inform macroeconomic decisions. The conference is now jointly organized with the Central Bank Research Association and the Economics with Nontraditional Data and Analytical Tools program. The Federal Reserve uses a broad array of government and private-sector data to continually assess the state of the economy, inform their outlook for economic activity, and evaluate the risks around that outlook.
