Understanding Economic Data and Policy

📋 Course Outline

1. Data sources and decision making
2. Interpreting tables and evaluating alternatives
3. GDP, recession, inflation and unemployment
4. Productivity and comparing economies
5. Living standards, policy and financial choices

📖 1. Data sources and decision making

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Primary data : Primary data are information collected first-hand for a specific purpose by the researcher or decision-maker.
• Secondary data : Secondary data are information created by someone else for another purpose and reused for decision-making.
• Data origin : Data origin is the source’s starting point, such as who collected the data and for what reason.
• Data purpose : Data purpose is the original goal for collecting the data, which affects how it should be interpreted.

📝 Essential Points

• Data quality depends on the source’s nature, origin, and purpose, which shape reliability for a decision.
• Primary and secondary sources differ in collection control, so misfit between purpose and question can bias decisions.

💡 Memory Hook

Primary = collected for this question; Secondary = reused from elsewhere.

📖 2. Interpreting tables and evaluating alternatives

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions