Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It
Morten Jerven
The GDP figures used to rank African economies may be guesswork.
Jerven showed that African economic statistics are often unreliable, thinly resourced, and methodologically shaky, so that a country could nearly double its measured GDP overnight by changing base years, as Ghana and later Nigeria did. By documenting how weak the data behind growth rankings and aid decisions really are, he forced economists and donors to question numbers they had treated as solid.
Its legacy. It launched a wave of scrutiny of development data and 'Africa rising' claims.
- Author
- Morten Jerven
- First published
- 2013
- Genre
- Development statistics
- Theme
- Political Economy and Development
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