Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)

Bravo to Morten Jervens on a fine and informative book. May the stats get better!!!!I just finished reading this book. Since I had read other things by author, I did not discover anything that I did not already know. For those who are not aware of his work, this book will come as quite informative and for some hopefully a wake up call. My only quibble with the book is that it too nice. Probably, this is a question of personality and style. He references epistemological and methodological problems that arise from using bad data (bad plus noisy data is, in my view, a priori junk); however, he does not, borrowing from a Seinfeld episode, bother to name names as much as I think he should have. In my view, there is no justification for someone who is methodologically sophisticated using bad data to draw inferences about whether institutions/regime types impact economic development and public goods distribution. There is no basis for claiming that there is a positive and robust relationship between post-structural adjustment, democratization and an uptick in economic growth in Africa based on national income data. As Jerven shows clearly, the problems with the data is just too much to rest such an inferential oomph onto. Even with pristine data, this proposition is problematic. It is down right silly with bad data! In a nutshell, I like the book a lot and see it as having a major impact but I would have liked it to have been more forceful in its criticism of those who have used bad data and should have known better

In my own research, I've often been dismayed at how often junk "data" is used as the basis for conclusions that are entirely unjustified. So it's helpful to see Morten Jerven's thorough exploration of this issue.He writes that "more than half of the rankings of African economies up to 2009 may be pure guesswork. It is not clear from the World Bank database whether or when these data are official, official preliminary data, projections based on previous country performance, projections based on performance of neighboring countries, or conjectures based on 'expert' advice." That's a lot to leave unclear!It's not a breezy read -- did you expect it to be? -- and not everyone needs to read it, but anyone working in fields where this data is used needs to understand what is (and often, is not) going on. I know of no other book that explores it so candidly.

after 40 years working on developpement planning in african countries I find a book dealing with poor or even false basic statistics.National population census have disappeared. Birth ratios, disease ratios , population structures are extrapolated from neighbouring countries and vice versa. Income end expenses family budgets are extrapolated from extremely small samples.the reality is that 40 years ago a socio-economist expert stayed from 2 to 3 years on the spot either in the bush or in shelter towns to get technical or socio-economical datas for a single project. 20 years later the World Bank standards were a week.Now people are allocated in the best case 3 days for focus group meetings with so called representative sample.Is is very necessary that other books on same topic be published on an hidden scandal

I have enjoyed this book, despite being quite specific (and therefore, unlikely to be interesting to the general reader). It identifies the problem with African statistics in a very clear and didactic manner and offers relevant and "easy-to-apply" recommendations for policymakers. It has certainly helped me look at country data in a totally different way.

I've done a masters in Economic History and International Development and I found Jerven's book  Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)  to be a well-written overview of a pressing issue that no one has ever talked about before. The subject matter is weighty and data-centric. But the author's clear and compelling writing style, as well as entertaining anecdotes from his research trips throughout sub Saharan Africa, make this a first-rate read both for experts and novices curious about international development, aid and global inequality. Jerven does an excellent job of answering the subtitle's question: "How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It." Hope he writes more soon. Kudos!

The book documents the largely conjectural nature of African national accounting. The national income (and hence also the growth) figures that the development community uses to evaluate African development turn out to be largely conjectural. National statistical agencies lack the status, resources and incentives to do their job properly. The Millennium Development Goals hinder rather than help as the production of poverty and other survey-based statistics is prioritized at the expense of national income. Academic development economists and the development agencies apparently connive in this misinformation.

Poor Numbers is a very good and easy read devoid of technical jargon and therefore accessible to many people (I have requested the library at my university to order a copy). Your anecdotes on statistical procedures in specific countries were highly illuminating - didn't know that there was a bit of a guessing game around Nigeria's population numbers, for instance.My hope is that the recommendations in your book will filter through so that proper data collection becomes a focal point of good governance.

I already read the book. Somebody took it from me and I just wanted to have on for my own library

Product delivered quicker that requested, reasonable price and in great physical quality.

data by African statisticians has for a variety of reasons always been considered less than perfect. However too much political correctness has to date prevented a more objective assessment of why the data is often poor. Poor Numbers is both a first-hand and academic discussion of the very real problems confronting under-resourced statistics departments across the Continent, but it is also very clear that callous government neglect of such a vital public sector function, wide-spread lack of pride in their work, all the way to down-right intentional short-cuts that generate crap data or dreamed-up figures lie at the heart of many of Africa's policy malaises today. The solutions to many of the problems are credible, studiously presented without polemic. Not a text that will ever be a bestseller due to its topic, but a significant contribution to a structural problem bedevilling African development today.

Compared with affluent countries the collection of economically relevant data has to surmount many difficulties in African countries, e.g., the larger informal sector and the bigger part of subsistence economy, the lack of funds for data collection ....Despite the many obstacles economic statistics relating to African countries are presented also by renowned western institutions without any hint about the poor data quality. The World Bank is even "inventing" statistics where data from the concerned countries are no yet available. To dispose of reliable data is imperative for designing and evaluating economic policies.It is the great merit of this book to arouse awareness of the shortcomings of national African statistics and its causes(it is not the incompetence or bad will of the competent staff !).Interesting also that while the involved African authorities were in general willing to provide information to the author there was a severe shortcoming of cooperation on the part of the World Bank and IMF.The book is - provided the reader has some basic knowledge in economics - comprehensibly written.

Important book, and a great introduction to some of the core challenges of producing and using data for better development policy and practice. Unfortunately, it reads like an unedited final draft and the Kindle edition contains various syntax and grammar errors. That said, it does not take away from the content.