Posts by Philip Wales

Keeping track of the testing, tracing and vaccination programmes: How we’re including the pandemic response in GDP

The policy response to the pandemic required ONS to record and measure lots of new types of economic activity, such as the test, trace and vaccination programmes. Philip Wales looks at how we are ensuring their impact on the economy will be properly measured.

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Doing our homework: how we’re improving our estimates of education output through the pandemic

Child on Zoom call

Teachers, students and parents have had a difficult year: school closures, remote instruction and the need to ‘home-school’ have all made providing lessons to students challenging. Here Philip Wales talks about how our measurement has responded to keep pace with fast-changing schools policies during the pandemic, and how the improvements we are now introducing impact on our figures.

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Two economic policy challenges walk into a bar. One says to the other: ‘Are we related?’

On any ranking, devising new trade policy for after Brexit and solving the productivity puzzle must be among the biggest economic policy challenges facing the UK. Following the latest ONS labour productivity release, Philip Wales highlights new work that shows how trade and productivity are closely related.

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