Belgian Economy Today: A high-frequency data aggregation and visualisation platform for adequate and timely economic analysis

In turbulent Covid-19 times, we experience shocks that have an
immediate impact on the financial situation of economic actors.
Tracking these changes with accounting data, monthly surveys or
quarterly macro-economic data leads to numbers that are neither
timely nor accurate: they are not detailed enough and published with
a release lag.
The solution is a digital platform called Belgian Economy Today. The
platform aggregates, distributes and visualizes in an automated and
structured way the high-frequency information embedded in the
corporate and governmental big data sets registering electronic
payments, electricity consumption, mobility, savings behaviour and
the media reporting about the economy.
Our Belgian Economy Today platform provides three types of
functionality.
First, it is a data aggregation and distribution hub. It aggregates from
the various sources the relevant data and makes them available in a
convenient data format for further economic analysis.
Second, it is a visual analytics platform that lets users dynamically
discover how the current data deviates from its behavior in normal
times.
Third, it is a communication platform where economic analysts can
exchange their data and discuss their model results and
interpretations.
For each functionality, we develop the data science techniques and
the end-user tool to make the platform adequate and timely for
analysing the Belgian economy