Revising GDP Estimates in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons from Ghana

Morten Jerven and Magnus Ebo Duncan

African Statistical Journal 15, 13-24, 2012

The upward revision of GDP in Ghana, announced in November 2010, attracted considerable attention in the media, in the development community, and from development scholars. This paper clarifies what caused this upward revision and discusses how the revision was handled. Many other countries have outdated base years and do not utilize data sources fully. They can learn from the Ghanaian experience and improve the accuracy of the most important metric for macroeconomic evaluations. This paper also offers a perspective on how the media and popular opinions are best managed in a careful and transparent process.

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