“THE economic history of the final decade will be re-written,” said an ex-adviser to George Osborne, a former chancellor, and on Twitter. The statistics community has been rocked by the publication of a research paper,which in effect suggested that the measurement of price changes in the telecoms sector had failed to account for huge technological improvements. Many believe that if the problem is corrected, everything from consumer-price inflation to GDP will need changing too. The saga is part of a broader worry: that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) struggles to degree the economy properly.
The rowdy debate over statistical quality has to an extent been encouraged by the ONS itself. Once hermit-like, and nowadays it seeks out the views of outsiders. The paper on telecoms was co-written by in-house wonks and external academics. The ONS even allows users to phone in if they have any questions. The person at the end of the line is generally thrilled to elaborate the finer points of...
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Source: economist.com