4  BIS Review 19/2004  Dick’s work on currency demand and the amount of U.S. currency held abroad has been published, of course, but its greatest public policy payoff has come behind the scenes, in helping the U.S. government look more effectively for counterfeiters. Peter burned countless hours of staff and machine time chasing the holy grail of a monthly estimate of GDP.
Monthly GDP remained an elusive quarry, but the techniques he pioneered in the process became an integral part of the tool kit used by sector analysts to translate high-frequency indicators into predictions of near-term movements in quarterly GDP and its components.