Do countries falsify economic data strategically? Some evidence that they do.

Gilles Stoltz (1, 2) , Tomasz Michalski (2)

1 DMA - Département de Mathématiques et Applications - ENS Paris
2 GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC

We find evidence supporting the hypothesis that countries at times misreport their economic data in a strategic manner. Among those suspected are countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, high negative net foreign asset positions or negative current account balances, which corroborates the intuition developed with a simple economic model. We also find that countries with bad institutional quality rankings and those in Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America release economic data of questionable veracity. Our evidence calls for models with public signals to consider strategic misinformation and for establishing independent statistical agencies to assure the delivery of high quality economic data.

Mots clés: capital flows; public information provision; misinformation; Benford's law; transparency

Domaines: Economies et finances; Applications [stat.AP]

Gilles Stoltz, Tomasz Michalski. Do countries falsify economic data strategically? Some evidence that they do.. 2010. ⟨halshs-00482106v1⟩