Royal Statistical Society meeting
Organised jointly with RSS Official Statistics Section, OECD and the User
Groups for Financial statistics, national accounts and business statistics.
"Efforts to Measure the Hard-to-Measure"
Wednesday 25th October, 3-5pm, at 12 Errol Street, London EC2
Summary: - it is those economic phenomena that are changing the most that
are of most interest to policy makers, businessmen and the public at large.
But it is these changes, because they frequently represent new activities or
fast, dynamic growth that are also the most difficult to track with
statistics. The OECD is in a unique position to observe how its 29 Member
countries try to come to grips with these changes. This Seminar will focus
on three areas that are plagued by measurement problems: services,
productivity and information and communication technologies.
3.00-3.20 International trade agreements and a new framework for measuring
international trade in services - Bill Cave
The GATS, the globalisation of services trade and rapid technological
developments have spurred the development of a new Manual on Statistics of
International Trade in Services, which provides a framework for measuring
this trade. This talk describes this work and the prospects for further
improvements in data on this trade.
3.20-3.40 Measurement and international comparison of output and
productivity - Paul Schreyer
Productivity is a key ingredient of economic growth. Yet, its measurement is
difficult - not least due to structural and technological developments that
are themselves underlying drivers of growth, for example the use of
information technology. This talk describes the issues arising in measuring
and comparing productivity and output.
3.40-4.00 Statistics on information and communication technologies and
applications like e-commerce - Andrew Wyckoff
While ICTs and applications like e-commerce are thought to be the economic
drivers of the future, most of what we know about them statistically is
limited and to a large degree originates from private sources. This talk
describes the recent work by public statistical agencies, the problems and
successes and what the OECD is doing to help.
4.00-onwards Discussants
Martin Weale, Director, NIESR
Mike Dicks, Chief Economist, Lehman Bothers
Nick Oulton, Bank of England
Robin Lynch, ONS
followed by discussion and questions, ending at 5.00.
Any queries: Simon Briscoe, (Chair, 020 7873 4126) or Ray Thomas (01908 679
081)
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