IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v51y2015i2p194-207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

GDP Revisions and Updating Statistical Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Reports from the Statistical Offices in Nigeria, Liberia and Zimbabwe

Author

Listed:
  • Morten Jerven
  • Yemi Kale
  • Magnus Ebo Duncan
  • Moffat Nyoni

Abstract

The quality of economic statistics in Africa has been likened to a statistical tragedy. Currently many statistical systems in Africa are being updated. This report from the statistical offices in Nigeria, Liberia and Zimbabwe documents that base year, data and methods used to generate GDP estimates currently date from 1990, 1992 and 1994. There is a growing need for macroeconomic statistics, but a rebasing of GDP estimates is costly and time consuming. The work to update economic statistics in Nigeria and Zimbabwe is still ongoing, while efforts to generate an authoritative estimate of the Liberian economy have proved unsuccessful.

Suggested Citation

  • Morten Jerven & Yemi Kale & Magnus Ebo Duncan & Moffat Nyoni, 2015. "GDP Revisions and Updating Statistical Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Reports from the Statistical Offices in Nigeria, Liberia and Zimbabwe," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 194-207, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:51:y:2015:i:2:p:194-207
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2014.968139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2014.968139
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220388.2014.968139?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jerven, Morten, 2014. "Economic Growth and Measurement Reconsidered in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, 1965-1995," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199689910, Decembrie.
    2. Shantayanan Devarajan, 2013. "Africa's Statistical Tragedy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 9-15, October.
    3. Morten Jerven, 2010. "Random Growth in Africa? Lessons from an Evaluation of the Growth Evidence on Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia, 1965-1995," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 274-294.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jerven, Morten, 2014. "African growth miracle or statistical tragedy? Interpreting trends in the data over the past two decades," WIDER Working Paper Series 114, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Morten Jerven, 2014. "A West African experiment: constructing a GDP series for colonial Ghana, 1891–1950," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(4), pages 964-992, November.
    3. Mensah, Emmanuel Buadi & Szirmai, Adam, 2018. "Africa Sector Database (ASD): Expansion and update," MERIT Working Papers 2018-020, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    4. Aguirre Unceta, Rafael, 2021. "The economic and social impact of mining-resources exploitation in Zambia," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Blair Fix, 2019. "The Aggregation Problem: Implications for Ecological and Biophysical Economics," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-15, March.
    6. Sunghun Lim, 2021. "Global Agricultural Value Chains and Structural Transformation," NBER Chapters, in: Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Dang,Hai-Anh H. & Kilic,Talip & Carletto,Calogero & Abanokova,Kseniya, 2021. "Poverty Imputation in Contexts without Consumption Data : A Revisit with Further Refinements," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9838, The World Bank.
    8. Broich, T. & Szirmai, A., 2014. "China's economic embrace of Africa: An international comparative perspective," MERIT Working Papers 2014-049, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    9. Jedwab, Remi & Vollrath, Dietrich, 2015. "Urbanization without growth in historical perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-21.
    10. Dang, Hai-Anh & Carletto, Calogero, 2022. "Recall Bias Revisited: Measure Farm Labor Using Mixed-Mode Surveys and Multiple Imputation," IZA Discussion Papers 14997, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Grant J. Cameron & Hai‐Anh H. Dang & Mustafa Dinc & James Foster & Michael M. Lokshin, 2021. "Measuring the Statistical Capacity of Nations," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(4), pages 870-896, August.
    12. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2016. "Economic Development In Africa And Europe: Reciprocal Comparisons," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 11-37, March.
    13. Hai‐Anh Dang & Dean Jolliffe & Calogero Carletto, 2019. "Data Gaps, Data Incomparability, And Data Imputation: A Review Of Poverty Measurement Methods For Data‐Scarce Environments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 757-797, July.
    14. Eberhardt, Markus & Presbitero, Andrea F., 2021. "Commodity prices and banking crises," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    15. Gareth Austin & Stephen Broadberry, 2014. "Introduction: The renaissance of African economic history," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(4), pages 893-906, November.
    16. de Haan, Arjan & Foa, Roberto, 2014. "Indices of social development and their application to Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 132, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Anthony B Aktinson, 2015. "Top incomes in East Africa before and after independence," Working Papers halshs-02654566, HAL.
    18. Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous & Thomas Eekhout, 2017. "Les TIC : une réponse au défi du développement des micro et petites entreprises informelles en Afrique sub-saharienne ?," Working Papers hal-02148324, HAL.
    19. Gwaindepi, Abel, 2019. "Serving God and Mammon: The ‘Minerals-Railway Complex’ and its effects on colonial public finances in the British Cape Colony, 1810-1910," African Economic History Working Paper 44/2019, African Economic History Network.
    20. Antonio Rodríguez Andrés & Abraham Otero & Voxi Heinrich Amavilah, 2022. "Knowledge economy classification in African countries: A model-based clustering approach," Information Technology for Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 372-396, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:51:y:2015:i:2:p:194-207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.