causal

Reliability band of 50-75% renders regressions meaningless

Given the disagreement across data sets—Jerven estimated a 30% reliability band in 2010, revised upward to plus-or-minus 50-75% after Ghana's revision—all the econometric estimations using African GDP per capita are for all practical purposes meaningless, and the problem is the metric itself being wrong rather than merely capturing the wrong things.

causalpending

Speaker

Morten Jerven

Evidence Quote

Today it's been showed by the recent GDP revision in Ghana we might be thinking plus or minus 50, 75% on this. And this means for all practical purposes all those econometric estimations are meaningless.

Source

Morten Jerven on Measuring African Poverty and ProgressEconTalk
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:25:58 AM

My Notes

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