Fellow's Opinion: Econometrics, Data, and the World Wide Web

Fellows of the Journal of Econometrics are invited to publish personal opinions regarding the field of econometrics in that journal. This paper is a statement of my personal opinion about the potential role of the World Wide Web in improving data quality and availability in economics. The paper also relates to current controversies regarding federal data quality and biases in index numbers produced by federal government agencies, as well as potential proposals for governmental reform in the areas of data production.