This volume discusses an important area of statistics and highlights the most important statistical advances. It is divided into four sections: statistics in the life and medical sciences, business and social science, the physical sciences and engineering, and theory and methods of statistics.

Introduction.Big data for twenty-first-century economic statistics: the future is now /Katharine G. Abraham, Ron S. Jarmin, Brian C. Moyer, and Matthew D. Shapiro --Toward comprehensive use of big data in economic statistics.Reengineering key national economic indicators /Gabriel Ehrlich, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, David Johnson, and Matthew D. Shapiro ;Big data in the US consumer price index: experiences and plans /Crystal G. Konny, Brendan K. Williams, and David M. Friedman ;Improving retail trade data products using alternative data sources /Rebecca J. Hutchinson ;From transaction data to economic statistics: constructing real-time, high-frequency, geographic measures of consumer spending /Aditya Aladangady, Shifrah Aron-Dine, Wendy Dunn, Laura Feiveson, Paul Lengermann, and Claudia Sahm ;Improving the accuracy of economic measurement with multiple data sources: the case of payroll employment data /Tomaz Cajner, Leland D. Crane, Ryan A. Decker, Adrian Hamins-Puertolas, and Christopher Kurz --Uses of big data for classification.Transforming naturally occurring text data into economic statistics: the case of online job vacancy postings /Arthur Turrell, Bradley Speigner, Jyldyz Djumalieva, David Copple, and James Thurgood ;Automating response evaluation for franchising questions on the 2017 economic census /Joseph Staudt, Yifang Wei, Lisa Singh, Shawn Klimek, J. Bradford Jensen, and Andrew Baer ;Using public data to generate industrial classification codes /John Cuffe, Sudip Bhattacharjee, Ugochukwu Etudo, Justin C. Smith, Nevada Basdeo, Nathaniel Burbank, and Shawn R. Roberts --Uses of big data for sectoral measurement.Nowcasting the local economy: using Yelp data to measure economic activity /Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca ;Unit values for import and export price indexes: a proof of concept /Don A. Fast and Susan E. Fleck ;Quantifying productivity growth in the delivery of important episodes of care within the Medicare program using insurance claims and administrative data /John A. Romley, Abe Dunn, Dana Goldman, and Neeraj Sood ;Valuing housing services in the era of big data: a user cost approach leveraging Zillow microdata /Marina Gindelsky, Jeremy G. Moulton, and Scott A. Wentland --Methodological challenges and advances.Off to the races: a comparison of machine learning and alternative data for predicting economic indicators /Jeffrey C. Chen, Abe Dunn, Kyle Hood, Alexander Driessen, and Andrea Batch ;A machine learning analysis of seasonal and cyclical sales in weekly scanner data /Rishab Guha and Serena Ng ;Estimating the benefits of new products /W. Erwin Diewert and Robert C. Feenstra.

Deals with official statistics produced by the federal government to meet decision-making needs in the various social and economic sectors.

This work, which provides a guide for revising and expanding statistical and quantitative methods pedagogy, is useful for novice and seasoned instructors at both undergraduate and graduate levels, inspiring them to use transformative approaches to train students as future researchers. Is it time for a radical revision in our pedagogical orientation? How are we currently teaching introductory statistics and quantitative methods, and how should we teach them? What innovations are used, what is in development? This ground-breaking edited volume addresses these questions and more, providing cutting-edge guidance from highly accomplished teachers. Many current textbooks and syllabi differ in only superficial ways from those used 50 years ago, yet the field of quantitative methods--and its relationship to the research enterprise--has expanded in many important ways. A philosophical axiom underlying this book is that introductory teaching should prepare students to potentially enter more advanced quantitative methods training and ultimately to become accomplished researchers. The reader is introduced to classroom innovation, and to both pragmatic and philosophical challenges to the status quo, motivating a broad revolution in how introductory statistics and quantitative methods are taught. Designed to update and renovate statistical pedagogy, this material will stimulate students, new instructors, and experienced teachers.

Offering an excellent, client-oriented, results-driven means for studying practice evaluation, this book brings together practice, research, structural change in service delivery, and specific skills in an integrated, problem-solving way. With managed care becoming such a hot topic, professionals need to track client assessments and demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of their treatment. PRACTICE EVALUATION IN THE 21st CENTURY helps students develop the skills to monitor efficacy by integrating practice and research in the text, as well as providing access to powerful evaluation software via the Web. The book effectively conveys to students the importance of empirically evaluating social work practice and the responsibility of all practitioners to engage in evaluation as an integrated part of professional practice. Students have access to the CASS software on the accompanying Web site and will find that the contextual support in the text along with easy-to-follow documentation make the software easy to use.

The Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) convened a workshop on November 4-5, 1999, to identify new directions for health statistics and the implications for health data of changes in the health arena faced by DHHS; state and local health departments; the consumers, developers, and providers of health care products and services; and other health policy makers. Changes in our understanding of health, in health care (managed care, Medicaid, Medicare), in welfare reform, in federal-state relations, in the availability of administrative data, in advanced genetic data, in information technology, in confidentiality issues, and in data integration are examples of recent developments that may play a significant role for DHHS in making future policy decisions.

Black Stats—a comprehensive guide filled with contemporary facts and figures on African Americans—is an essential reference for anyone attempting to fathom the complex state of our nation. With fascinating and often surprising information on everything from incarceration rates, lending practices, and the arts to marriage, voting habits, and green jobs, the contextualized material in this book will better attune readers to telling trends while challenging commonly held, yet often misguided, perceptions. A compilation that at once highlights measures of incredible progress and enumerates the disparate impacts of social policies and practices, this book is a critical tool for advocates, educators, and policy makers. Black Stats offers indispensable information that is sure to enlighten discussions and provoke debates about the quality of Black life in the United States today—and help chart the path to a better future. There are less than a quarter-million Black public school teachers in the U.S.—representing just 7 percent of all teachers in public schools. Approximately half of the Black population in the United States lives in neighborhoods that have no White residents. In the five years before the Great Recession, the number of Black-owned businesses in the United States increased by 61 percent. A 2010 study found that 41 percent of Black youth feel that rap music videos should be more political. There are no Black owners or presidents of an NFL franchise team. 78 percent of Black Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, compared with 56 percent of White Americans.