Bringing new data sources is one of the best ways of leashing our perceptions tighter to reality. As an equities quant, I subscribe to commercial data on firms listed in the US. The earnings data and so on contain macro information that can be recovered if the data is processed and aggregated properly. Here were look at the aggregate cost of production reported by listed firms in the SF1 filings. This reported variable corresponds closely to the inflation as experienced by the listed firms. We expect fluctuations in this variable to covary with general inflation.
great piece