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Notes -
"Trump fires Bureau of Labor Statistics chief without evidence for political reasons" says the news radio I wake up to, then continues to say he removed the Democrat appointee "without concrete evidence." Since COVID-19 caused lockdowns, the BLS numbers have been revised downward from initial reports regularly, sometimes ridiculously so, which Axios says has justifiable reasons.
So why are the initial numbers even reported if we know the algorithm they use will be wildly inaccurate?
This seems like focusing on the wrong part of the story.
"Moreover, the BLS and other federal agencies are essentially trying to serve two purposes at once. On the one hand, they’re hoping to provide actionable information as fast as they reasonably can to employers, investors, job-seekers, policymakers and the Federal Reserve. On the other hand, they’re trying to formulate a “permanent record”, data that is treated as ground truth in future economic analysis. Those imply taking different positions in the unavoidable trade-off between speed and precision."
Biased estimators can still be useful. If you know an estimator is consistently high, you can account for that in your planning. On the other hand, if political leadership is putting their thumb on the scale to make themselves look good (or salve dear leader's ego), trustworthiness goes out the window. It's one thing to be wrong occasionally, it's another to be bullshit.
If the estimator knows that they're consistently high, why aren't they adjusting the model they're using to produce estimates with to account for that?
If the estimator is wrong consistently but in a predictable way... they should be able to be wrong less often?
At least in this case I think there is an added political dimension of reluctance to update the model: "You were happy enough to overestimate [measurement] for my opponent last term, and now you want to publish lower estimates, maybe even underestimates on my watch. Are you trying to display partisan bias?"
In addition to the value of "we've at least measured it consistently for the last century, even if there are known issues with it it's easier to fix those in post", which also has some value.
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