Noam Angrist, DPhil alumnus, has had a paper published in the summer issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

'Why is growth in developing countries so hard to measure?' is co-authored by Noam with colleagues from the World Bank including Penny Goldberg (former Chief Economist) and Dean Jolliffe (World Development Report 2021 co-director).

The paper compares several data sources and analysis to find no support for the widely-held perception that growth statistics from developing countries are not to be trusted. Both developing countries and higher-income countries face many challenges in measuring growth. However, the authors find consistently higher dispersion of growth estimates from developing countries; they then identify several measurement challenges that are specific to poorer countries, and recommend utilising different data sources for a more accurate growth measurement.