Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics (Volume 359)
By Kevin Aylward on Politics
Wizbang
As a former economist and statistician I'm hesitant to ascribe motive to that which might be explained by chance.
Steve Sturm has been looking at 3rd quarter GDP estimates in election years and the later reported actual 3rd quarter GDP. He finds that the supposedly non-partisan bureaucrats at the Commerce Department have managed to put out numbers that reflected poorly on the Republican candidate or gave a boots to the Democratic candidate.. Coincidence?
wizbangblog.com
Posted 11:48 PM by steve
Good news on Wall Street today, with news that the economy grew at a faster rate than the Commerce Department previously estimated. But being a cynical type, I decided to look into previous estimates of GDP growth...in particular, the estimates released just before the 1996, 2000 and 2004 elections*. Here's what I found:
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The advance estimate of GDP gains for the 3rd Qtr of 1996 (released on October 30, 1996) was 2.2% - the final number, released a couple of months later, was only 2.1%.
The advance estimate of GDP gains for the 3rd Qtr of 2000 (released on October 27, 2000) was 2.7% - the final number, released a couple of months later, was only 2.2%.
The advance estimate of GDP gains for the 3rd Qtr of 2004 (released on October 29, 2004) was 3.7% - the final number, released a couple of months later, was actually higher, at 4.0%
I know the Bureau of Economic Analysis is supposed to be both competent and non-partisan. So it must be merely coincidental that the two times a Democrat was in the White House and in theory responsible for the health of the economy, the preliminary estimates were both higher than actual GDP growth later turned out to be? It must be merely coincidental that the one time a Republican was in the White House and in theory responsible for the health of the economy, the preliminary estimate released just prior to the 2004 election was actually lower than actual GDP growth later turned out to be? It must be merely coincidental that Gore was the beneficiary of a 18% over-estimate in how well the economy was doing in 2000? And it must be merely coincidental that Kerry was the beneficiary of the Commerce Department under-reporting GDP growth by 8% just before the 2004 election?
A coincidence. All three times. Imagine that.
* UPDATE: When I first posted this, I hadn't found any data for 1992 (the BEA's web site only had data back to 1996) and wondered if there might have been a coincidence in 1992 as well. Well, it turns out that the BEA is 4 for 4. According to this 1993 article, the advance estimate for 1992 3rd Qtr GDP growth - the estimate released just before the election - was 2.7%. The final number for that quarter was 3.4% - a 21% UNDERSTATEMENT in GDP growth that bolstered the Democrat's claim ("It's the economy, stupid") that the economy was doing poorly.
So, four elections in a row, the supposedly non-partisan bureaucrats at the Commerce Department have managed to put out numbers that reflected poorly on the Republican candidate. Coincidence? I doubt it...
UPDATE II: I've put up a follow up post on the real-world implications of these coincidences...
thoughtsonline.blogspot.com
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