Category: Statistics

The Data War Comes 黑料社区

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The Trump administration鈥檚 ongoing attempts at manipulating US government economic data echoes controversies that have existed in the realm of development data for decades. These controversies highlight the unavoidable, intrinsically political nature of measuring social phenomena with economic statistics, and the role of economists in legitimizing (or not) such measures.

In early August, the employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed weaker than expected job growth for July and announced downward revisions (fewer new jobs than previously reported) for the two months prior. Trump responded by . This move provoked a from other civil servants, economists, and experts on democracy, which only intensified when Trump initially nominated as the replacement E.J. Antoni, the chief economist for the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation. Antoni had been an jobs data altogether, and was widely perceived by critics as both and for the position. There is that the jobs report will become less reliable, even leading to the current staff at the BLS to still trust their numbers, for now. The BLS is also responsible for producing the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the central measure of inflation produced by the US government. Inflation鈥檚 centrality in recent politics, including promises from Trump to bring down prices on 鈥�,鈥� have led . There would of a degraded CPI measure,  which affects tax brackets, the value of some treasury bonds, and social security and other social insurance payments.

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Kicking Away the (Statistical) Ladder

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Developed countries often lecture developing and emerging countries on the appropriate policies and institutions necessary for economic success. This is done either bilaterally or through multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, IMF, OECD or European Union. Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang exposed the hypocrisy of this approach in his provocative 2002 book . Chang suggests that when today鈥檚 rich countries were themselves developing, they used practices opposite to what they preach today, including industrial policies, high tariffs and infant industry protection. Therefore their current advice to poorer countries amounts to 鈥榢icking away the ladder鈥� of development.

A lesser-known but equally disturbing process has occurred in the realm of economic statistics, in particular national income accounts. The EU and OECD often criticize the national accounts of developing countries, and a recent example is a claim made in a by Robert Barro: “There are suspicions that China鈥檚 reported growth rates in recent decades have been boosted by manipulation of the national-accounts data.” While no statistical system is beyond doubt, the biggest manipulations of data in history, in fact, have benefited (and were supported by) rich countries.Read More »