For decades policy makers and economists have sought data that would allow them to better understand how changes in financial behaviour affect the economy. Now they are getting a boost from a new and unexpected research partner — 12bet官方.

The bank launched a global think-tank this week — the 12bet官方 研究所 — aiming to combine the power of big-data analytics with information culled from 30m of its own customers to build a more granular snapshot of the US economy.

Mapping financial shifts in real time has long been considered a holy grail for policy makers looking to respond more effectively to the ups and downs of an economic cycle. But the data on which they rely are often extrapolated from recurring public surveys and government records.

What if they had access to the actual daily transactions of tens of millions of Americans?
For its debut report, the institute analysed the income and spending habits of 2.在2012年至2014年的两年多时间里，500万名账户持有人被解雇, to gauge how individuals responded to earnings fluctuations on a weekly and monthly basis in the wake of the financial crisis.

正如经济学家普遍担心的那样, the study shows that far too few US households would have enough savings to weather a large unexpected expense — such as a medical bill or a household repair — at the same time as a significant loss of income.

The institute found that while the typical middle-income family would need a "buffer" of about $4,800 to sustain the kind of monthly fluctuations in earnings seen in its account sample, 除了最高收入者，其他所有人都无法达到这样的储蓄水平.

事实上, 而中等家庭的平均收入约为3美元,可以动用的资产, the lowest-income households would probably have to take on debt or liquidate some of their assets to deal with a significant loss of earnings in the same month as an unexpected expense.

But perhaps the report’s most surprising finding is just how volatile households’ income and spending habits are at both ends of the wealth spectrum.

Policy makers have long tried to model how vulnerable low-income families are to financial shocks in trying to develop social programmes that can help prevent households from tipping into a crisis when faced with a single unexpected event or expense.

然而, the institute’s data show that households in the highest income quintile experience just the same high levels of both income and spending volatility as the lowest-earning households.
例如, individuals at the bottom end of the income spectrum of the sample — those earning less than $35,300 — experienced near double-digit jumps in their monthly income 25 per cent of the time and equally large drops another 25 per cent of the time.

But those month-to-month swings were even wider among top-earning account holders — those with incomes of more than $100,000. 整个样本, individuals in every income quintile experienced significantly more volatility in consumption than in income, 支出和收入经常不同步.

What those data suggest is that while financial shocks may be more disruptive for low-income families, 任何盈利集团都无法免受这种波动的影响.

"How exposed are individuals to income and consumption volatility over time? 不同收入阶层的人的收入和支出模式不同吗? How much of a financial buffer do households need to weather their exposure to volatility?戴安娜·法雷尔说, the woman who was brought in to head the institute from Mckinsey’s centre for government.

“有了这样的分析, the institute will be able to answer the questions to help policy makers make more informed decisions."

The institute’s use of customer data is unlikely to be free from controversy, given the negativity still surrounding the banking sector and JP摩根’s involvement in an array of scandals that has cost it more than $20bn in fines in recent years.

JP摩根 says strict privacy protocols have been put in place to safeguard its customers’ privacy.

例如, 在研究所收到任何数据之前, 所有唯一的可识别信息-包括名称, 账号, 地址, 出生日期, 社会安全号码也被删除了.

只有汇总的数据——而不是单独的数据——才能发布.

The bank also acknowledges that its data set is skewed away from America’s poorest households, 其中许多人实际上仍然没有银行账户. Account holders included in the sample must have $500 in deposits every month and hold a credit card from the bank. The sample is also limited to a geographic footprint of the 23 states where 12bet官方 has physical branches.

但这将是一个受到密切关注的项目, and one that ultimately may be able to provide a more data-rich analysis of economic shifts as they happen.

摘自《12bet官方》. 2015年5月20日. 12bet官方(JP摩根)的全球智库利用大数据解读美国经济. 梅根·墨菲.