Question

ood numbers in economics

Answer 1

AS THE old joke goes, statistics are like a bikini—what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. America's advance GDP figures tend to be more of a bathing suit than a bikini: they are a bit outdated and hide as much as they show. Nevertheless, on January 30th it wasn't just hardened statisticians whose eyes were out on stalks. Fourth-quarter numbers, showing an annualised growth rate of 0.6% (or less than 0.2% in quarterly terms), suggested that America's economy was barely growing at the end of last year. It was lower than economists had expected.