Poor Numbers
How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It
About the book
The GDP figures and growth estimates that governments, donors and the World Bank use to judge sub-Saharan African economies are far less reliable than they appear, Morten Jerven argues. Examining how national accounts are actually produced, he finds that statistical offices across the region have fallen into disarray and that the published numbers often misstate real conditions. The consequences reach well beyond technical detail: aid is misallocated, policies fail to deliver, and donors cannot tell what their money achieves. Jerven also notes that, for all the talk of evidence-based policy, no econometric technique can make up for partial or unreliable data.
Bill Gates included it among the best books he read in 2013, noting that Jerven spent four years studying how African nations compile GDP estimates and made a strong case that many trusted figures are far from accurate.
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Bill Gates (CEO/Microsoft)
Jerven, an economist, spent four years digging into how African nations get their statistics and the challenges they face in turning them into GDP estimates. He makes a strong case that a lot of GDP measurements we thought were accurate are far from it. But as I argue in my longer review, that doesn’t mean we know nothing about what works in development.
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