Statistical disclosure and economic growth: What is the nexus?

Reynaldo Senra Hodelin

World Development, 2022, vol. 160, issue C

Abstract: Although the benefits of information for the quality of economic decisions have been highlighted by numerous theoretical studies, only a few empirical studies have investigated the relevance of statistics for the economy. It is particularly surprising that no previous empirical study has researched the existence of a causal link running from statistical disclosure to long-run economic growth. Our research investigates the existence of this nexus in a panel of 105 countries. We applied methodologies for non-stationary panel data in order to assess the long-run causality. We found that data availability was causing long-run economic growth in all income level groups but in the high income one. However, the higher certainty about a positive causality was found in middle income nations. This is true because bidirectional causality was found in poor nations, where it is possible that statistical production demand more resources than it may generate by boosting economic growth. With regard to short-run causality, it was only found in middle income nations. Finally, we find that the publication of the indicators in the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database is in fact relevant for economic growth.

Keywords: Disclosure; Information sharing; Economic development; Panel data; VECM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 D83 F63 H41 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:160:y:2022:i:c:s0305750x22002261

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106036

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