PDS: Understanding Quality Data to Obtain Meaningful Results

By Chris Swann
NABE Board Member
PDS Planning Committee Co-Chair

NABE is saddling up, packing the wagons and heading west to Dallas for this year’s Professional Development Seminar.  The 2008 seminar will once again present its popular format that includes economists from federal statistical agencies and economists from the public and private sectors who use those statistics in developing policy analysis and forecasts.

This year’s seminar, to be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas June 16-18, is jam-packed with traditional and new material in a format designed to be cost-effective and extensive.  The seminar is structured with two tracks of concurrent sessions.  One track will contain all of the core macroeconomic themes traditionally provided.  A second track, added this year, will focus on regional, industry, and international economics. 

“The core PDS content – which includes the gross domestic product, employment statistics, price statistics, and the flow of funds statistics – has been enormously popular with early- to mid-career professionals, many of whom are new to NABE,” pointed out Rosemary Marcuss, former NABE president and co-chair of this year’s planning committee.  “The program presents the most important data produced by the statistical agencies along with interesting applications of that data presented by professionals in the field,” she said.

Coverage Expands to Regional, International, Industry Data

Many NABE members have asked that PDS expand its coverage to include regional, international, and industry applications and NABE has responded in this year’s program.  Duncan Meldrum, former NABE president and founder of the PDS, explained that this year’s seminar will retain its distinctive combination of two complimentary perspectives on key economic statistics – those of data producers and data users.  “ One of the most important aspects of PDS,” Meldrum continued, “is that participants get an opportunity to interact with the speakers off-line.”

Sunday, June 16 will open with an optional skills session presented by Maurine Haver, president of Haver Analytics and chair of NABE’s Statistics Committee.  Next Meldrum, chief economist of Air Products, will present a session on price index number construction and related issues, and then follow with a session on time series decomposition analysis, another addition to this year’s program.

One of the highlights will be a luncheon address by NABE president Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, chief economist at Ford, on pulling together analysis and forecasts into a cohesive corporate plan.  Another highlight will feature John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Bank, Stuart Hoffman, former NABE president and chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group, and Meldrum.  Silvia will reprise his annual meeting discussion on communicating cyclical intelligence and the panel will address the art of analysis and forecasting.

Register by May 15 and save $50 on fees.  To register for the seminar and find more details go to: http://nabe.com/stats2008/ or download the seminar brochure.