The Bundesbank’s RSDC is specifically looking to establish close ties between research and policy guidance. The idea is for researchers to be given access, free of charge and with a minimum of red tape, to the data – subject, of course, to the appropriate data protection requirements.
So by increasing the availability of sound data, we are going a long way towards dismantling the first of the two hurdles we face in this field. However, data alone are insufficient to tell us how effective an economic policy measure has been. This measure, rather, needs to be embedded in a structured impact study.