Strong support from the users of the data is surely in order -- not just from academic economists, but from the whole community of market analysts, Fed watchers and business and financial organizations who need to understand how the economy is working in order to operate better in it.
Indeed, I have been struck since I have been at the Fed by the magnitude of the resources our economy puts into analyzing, reporting and commenting upon the standard set of statistics generated by federal statistical agencies every week -- efforts by the press, the business community and the people in between, such as those who write the newsletters and poop sheets that circulate over faxes and computers.