The analysis of micro-level, granular data has made significant progress over the past two decades. Availability of new data sources has improved, not least through research data centers, and new empirical methodologies have been developed. Many of these improvements have taken place in the areas of labor economics, international trade and investment, or in the identification of effects of monetary policy.
Within the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), there has been a paradigm shift away from the production of aggregates towards more granular statistics: •  Since 2005, granular data on securities have been collected and proceeded in the Centralised Securities Database (CSDB).