Skip to content

There’s an easy answer to this

One that all actual economists know:

John Dorge says:
January 13 2018 at 11:17 am
Unfortunately the question of data availability leads quickly to speculation.

Interesting that you have to dig down to the 5-digit level to find “Banks” on the SIC07. Manufacturing by comparison has 24, 2-digit categories with industries as close as wood/wood products and paper/paper products being distinguished at that level.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places, but I note the ONS provides GVA data no further down than the 2-digit level.

Reply
Richard Murphy says:
January 13 2018 at 12:05 pm
You endorse the reason for asking the questions

Reply

When Simon Kuznets laid out the very idea of national income accounts, GDP and so on, manufacturing was a very important part of the economy. Thus the attention paid to it in the statistics. Not enough has changed over the decades as we’ve moved to a much more services dominated economy. We simply don’t, because of this historical oddity, collect nor register stats on services in as fine a set of detail as we do manufacturing.

Perhaps this should change. But it does pose a problem for those, like Ritchie, who would plan the economy. Our knowledge about the economy we want to plan is pretty shit…..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *