Why the economic picture tends to be rosier than initial estimates suggest
One of the surprises of last week was the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate of economic growth in the second quarter of 2016, the period from April to the end of June. In the run up to Brexit, the economy expanded by 0.6 per cent on the first quarter of the year. This was […]
The EU referendum has shown just how irrational voters are
Some things never seem to change. In the mid-16th century, in the course of her short reign Queen Mary, a daughter of Henry VIII, tried to restore Catholicism. To this end, she arranged to marry King Philip of Spain, at a time when Spain dominated Europe. The Spanish ambassador in London sent back a gloomy […]
The national accounts are the new JK Rowling
A potential candidate for the world’s most boring book is the Office for National Statistics’ National Accounts: Sources and Methods. This book, all 502 pages of it, is currently available in hardback on Amazon for just 1p. It does exactly what it says in the title. It gives a detailed description of how the data […]
