• 1.55 – 2.00pm: Annual General Meeting of the Official Statistics Section (Chair: Alison Macfarlane).

• 2:00 – 4.00pm: Public Understanding of Economics and Economic Statistics (Chair: Mike Hughes)

Event outline is as below:

Public understanding of economics is essential for democracy. It shapes people’s ability to assess economic performance and hold decision-makers accountable. In light of this, one recommendation from the Bean Review was that future provision of economic statistics should not only recognise its importance to effective policy-making but also that it is a wider public good which is key to the electorate’s ability to perform their function in the democratic process.

Funded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of the research programme of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) undertook a large-scale survey aimed to establish what people understood by the economy and economic concepts as well as their degree of confidence and ability in interpreting economic statistics. Through focus groups the project went beyond the existing evidence base by providing in-depth qualitative insights into how people think about economic statistics and the way this influences how they assess economic performance and make political decisions.

An extension to the original project brought together economists and statisticians with the general public in a series of online workshops to speak about a range of economic concepts and statistics including unemployment, inflation, GDP and public finances.

Johnny Runge, principal NIESR researcher and ESCoE Topic Lead, will outline the key findings from the two projects, with subsequent discussion by Sumit Dey-Chowdhury, ONS, and Ed Humpherson, DG Office of Statistics Regulation.