Chiara Scotti: Central bank business surveys - version 2.0

Speech by Ms Chiara Scotti, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the 14th Annual Conference on "Central Bank Business Survey and Liaison Programs", Rome, 30 October 2024.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

The annual conference on 'Central Bank Business Survey and Liaison Programs' is now coming to a close. Let me warmly thank all the participants and speakers who have contributed to the success of this initiative, jointly organized by Banca d'Italia and the European Central Bank. The large number of central banks on both sides of the Atlantic participating in this conference reveals the importance of business surveys for policymakers. The usefulness of firm-level surveys has become so clear that an increasing number of central banks have added them to their analytical toolkits in recent years. Indeed, we have many more central banks attending the CBBS conference today than a few years ago, partly thanks to our colleagues at the Atlanta Fed who have pushed for such a larger group. This year's programme brought together insightful methodological and applied papers on various aspects of business surveys.

In the remainder of my intervention, I would like to briefly discuss the advantages and limitations of traditional business surveys, and then take advantage of having such an incredible audience in front of me to nudge researchers, both from academic institutions and from central banks, to explore new directions to develop what I defined in the title as business surveys 2.0, to make sure we seize the opportunities presented by new technologies and digitalization.