About
CREED: Center for the REstoration of Economic Data
Welcome to CREED (Center for the REstoration of Economic Data). CREED advances research in many fields, including topics in regional economics and consumer finance, by converting information in books, images, and other formats into ready-to-use, publicly available digital data.
About CREED
CREED, launched in June 2023, is a collaboration between researchers in our Consumer Finance Institute and Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
Our mission is to advance research in many fields, including topics in regional economics and consumer finance, by making economic data available in readily accessible, digital form. CREED combines state-of-the-art machine learning technology with deep subject matter expertise to convert natively unstructured data (information in books, images, and other undigitized formats) into readily accessible digital data.
The CREED research team shares the original analog or unstructured data as well as the code used to recover and clean these data, which are aggregated for use in novel economic research. Our collection features volumes of old, often overlooked, and frequently inaccessible data, which have been mined, restored, and converted into unstructured digital and analytically usable formats.
Users will have access to the variety of data highlighted in the Philadelphia Fed’s new and forthcoming projects. This featured work helps further the mission of the Federal Reserve System by providing researchers with new data and innovative methods to conduct timely economic, policy-relevant, and methods research.
From Rasters to Rows
In August 2024, we brought together leading researchers developing new methods of automated data extraction and applying them to frontier social-science research.
Visit the event page to watch recordings, download presentations, and view President Harker’s opening remarks.
Featured Projects
Housing is central to the economy of cities across the United States. The Historical Housing Prices (HHP) Project, now at the Philadelphia Fed, provides new data on the price of housing for sale and for rent over the 20th century using the real estate sections of historical newspapers. The data cover 30 major cities, including Philadelphia.
Our interactive map of Philadelphia explores the use of racial covenants, language added to deeds that prevented non-White people from buying/renting property. This invisible barrier blocked many from newly developed areas and predominantly White neighborhoods.
Coming soon: We will use Philadelphia Realty Directory Service property directory and sales data to examine the evolution of housing access, pricing, and demographic characteristics at the property level (1935–1945). This collection will include images/maps and transactional data.
Coming soon: We are extracting tabular data from printed census reports (1940–1960) and geospatial data from printed census maps (1940–1980). We will build a harmonized block-level geospatial and tabular data set (1940–2010) to view 70 years of housing demographics at the smallest possible census geographic unit.
Projects in Progress
The following data digitization projects are currently in the works. This web page will be revised to feature this work as it is completed. Please check back for periodic updates.
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Philadelphia Realty Directory Services (PRDS)
Sales Transactions 1935–1945 - Philadelphia Realty Directory Services (PRDS)
City Directory, 1935 - Expanded Spatial Database of Racial Covenants
1910–1965
Related Work
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Working Paper
The Bronx Is Burning: Urban Disinvestment Effects of the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements
May 2025
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Working Paper
The Value of Piped Water and Sewers: Evidence from 19th Century Chicago
February 2025
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Event
From Rasters to Rows: New Methods and Applications in Automated Data Extraction
Aug. 15 – 16, 2024
Featured Experts
Senior Vice President and Associate Director of the Consumer Finance Institute
Vice President and Economist
Advisor and Senior Manager, Data Science and Engineering, Consumer Finance Institute
Senior Advisor and Research Fellow, Consumer Finance Institute
Economic Advisor and Economist
Economic Advisor and Economist
Data Scientist, Consumer Finance Institute
Economic Advisor and Economist
Contact Us
If you have questions about our digitization initiatives or career opportunities, or if you would like to connect with one of our researchers, please click on their highlighted names in the Featured Experts section. Click here to contact us.
Disclaimers
As-Is Disclaimer: The work is provided on an as-is basis, without warranties or conditions of any kind. While we strive to achieve high accuracy rates in our digitization process, we cannot provide guarantees of accuracy. The data may be subject to update or revision at any time without notice.
Discriminatory Content Disclaimer: Some historic documents found in our digitization projects may contain language or content that is discriminatory, biased, or offensive by today’s standards. In providing the data to the public unchanged from its original form, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve seeks to preserve the historical record while in no way approving of such language or content. Diversity is vital to the Fed’s mission to encourage economic growth and financial stability. We strive to build a workplace where inclusion is culture, not policy.