TY - RPRT AU - Askitas, Nikos AU - Martinez, Anoop Bindra AU - Cereda, Fabio Saia TI - The IZA / Fable Swipe Consumption Index PY - 2024/Sep/ PB - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) CY - Bonn T2 - IZA Discussion Paper IS - 17311 UR - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp17311 AB - This paper introduces a novel monthly consumption indicator: the IZA / Fable Data consumption indicator for Germany. It is based on credit card transactions data collected and anonymised by Fable Data from 2017 onwards. We study some of the properties of the data and use a so-called "one year look back rolling panel" method to construct a monthly consumption indicator which expresses the year on year change. The data provisioning is fast and data is updated daily so that our indicator is stable with a 3 day lag. Moreover preliminary results for a month can be delivered as early as the middle of the month by comparing months partially. Our indicator is a new experimental early indicator ideal for nowcasting purposes and forecasting of breaking trends in consumer behaviour. KW - credit card transactions KW - consumption expenditures KW - nowcasting ER -