Role of Credible Data in Economic Decision Making

Economic statistics play a critical role not only in understanding and tracking the economy but also in framing policy. The careful and transparent collection, reporting and analysis of credible economic data are essential to evidence-based policy making. It is important to analyze precisely what’s going on in the economy and statistics play a key role in not only analyzing problems but also helping policy makers to take suitable measures to address the complex issues and set targets and use indicators for monitoring and evaluation purposes. However, in recent times, the credibility of the economic data published by the government and other statistical agencies is increasingly being questioned on grounds that the data putout in the public domain is not factually correct and does not follow standard international practices in its compilation. Hence, this chapter makes an attempt to not only highlight the importance of compiling data that is credible for effective decision making but also identifies the data gap mainly in economic indicators and recommends various measures that the government and other agencies would need to follow to ensure that the data compiled is credible and usable leading to authentic results. The study also brings the experiences of best practices followed by various countries to be utilized in India for effective data management.