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If retailers and statistical agencies can agree on sharing the Scanner data, then technologies like Webservices can be used to autmoate the collection of prices and quantities data. In fact this should take care of or atleast provide the data to remove some of the biases involved in the regular price collection methodolgies (seasonal sales, substitution bias etc.). Anonymity and confidentiality can be maintained using various tools and algorithms available (so that a statistician can not figure out which retaier is offering what price). A customized version of Google which only searches the Economics related websites. I have just started working on it and still have many sites which need to be added to the list.  Economics Search
You can suggest a site to include. Or better, you can collaborate by signing up as a contributor to this search engine (takes you to the Google page). Something similar like what REPEC/IDEAS does for working and research papers. If we can share the data series or datasets (ofcourse the ones that are not violating any copyright laws), that would be of immense value to the academic and research community. The datasets will be Tagged with keywords and will be categorized (JEL codes). People can sign up for receiving email or RSS updates when a new dataset is available in a particular area. Building on endogenous growth models where there is role of R & D, can we derive an equivalent role for science and technology policy of the government. If there are externalities, uncertainities and information assymeteries when it comes to skill sets and production capabilities of a country's population and infrastructure, government's involvement in the form of promoting (by investments and other policy interventions) the most suited of the alternatives among competiting sets of technologies might improve the outcome.
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