What are we missing?

Weekly Updates

After years of angst about low UK productivity numbers, the problem has been solved—because it never existed. The numbers were revised higher. US savings rates were approaching worryingly low levels—until the numbers were revised higher. US savings rates have fallen, but the level is less alarming.
The world is generally better than first reported. This is partly because few people fill in the surveys used to collect data. As response rates collapse, only people who want to complain bother to fill in the forms.
More important, the rapidly changing world of the 2020s leaves statisticians using economic measures constructed in the 1920s. This means data (in real time) misses swathes of the economy and underestimates growth. The rise of self-employment and side hustles complicates labor market data (designed to count people clocking in and out of a factory, not dancing about on TikTok). Small business activity is more often estimated than counted. The rise of online retail complicates price collection.
Imprecision comes because, as the world economy becomes more complex, more of what we do is not properly counted. The risk with such imprecision is that time is wasted pursuing non-existent problems—or worse, that policy mistakes are made because of an incomplete, overly pessimistic understanding.