What happens when governments cook the books

当政府做假账会发生什么?

Planet Money

2025-08-09

34 分钟
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单集简介 ...

After President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economists and statisticians across the board were horrified. Because the firing raises the spectre of potential manipulation – and it raises the worry that, in the future, the numbers won't be as trustworthy. So: we looked at two countries that have some experience with data manipulation. To ask what happens when governments get tempted to cook the books. And...once they cook the books... how hard is it to UN-cook them? It's two statistical historical cautionary tales. First, we learn how Argentina tried to mask its true inflation rate, and how that effort backfired. Then, we hear about the difficult process of cleaning up the post-cooked-book mess, in Greece. For more: - Can we just change how we measure GDP? - The price of lettuce in Brooklyn - What really goes on at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Update) - Can we still trust the monthly jobs report? (Update) - How office politics could take down Europe - The amazing shrinking economy might stop shrinkingListen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts. Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter. Support Planet Money, get bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening and now Summer School episodes one week early by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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  • This is Planet Money from NPR.

  • Amy O'Hara is a data person.

  • Trained as an economist, worked at the U.S.

  • Census Bureau, now works at something called the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown.

  • And that's where she was last Friday,

  • getting ready to go out of town to Nashville for a big statistics conference.

  • It would have been a pretty chill Friday before travel.

  • You know what I mean?

  • But it wasn't.

  • It wasn't because in the middle of the day,

  • Amy comes out of her office to meet one of her colleagues.

  • He's coming to pick up some stickers that they're planning to bring to that conference.

  • Stickers all about how important good data is.

  • But when Amy comes out of the office, she realizes that her colleague does not look happy.

  • He's like, have you heard?

  • Wow, did you hear about BLS?

  • I said, no, what about BLS?

  • BLS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  • As you may have heard, they released their monthly jobs report last Friday, and it was a bad one.

  • The economy is adding fewer jobs than people expected.