## Statistical Forum on Inclusive Growth – Leaving Nothing Out and Nobody Behind

_IMF News, December 2, 2016_

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Statistical Forum on Inclusive Growth – Leaving Nothing Out and Nobody Behind](https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2016/12/02/statistical-forum-on-inclusive-growth-leaving-nothing-out-and-nobody-behind)

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: December 2, 2016

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### Forum overview and purpose
- Event: Fourth IMF Statistical Forum on Statistics for Inclusive Growth.
- Location and dates: Held at the IMF headquarters in Washington DC on November 17 and 18.
- Publication date on IMF site: December 2, 2016.
- Objective: Discuss how statistics can contribute to policies aimed at achieving inclusive growth and the increasing demand for such statistics among statisticians, academics, experts, and policymakers.

### What is inclusive growth?
- Inclusive growth described as multidimensional, involving:
  - income and wealth distribution within economies;
  - segmented data by gender, social groups, and geographical area;
  - measures that capture developments in a more globalized and digitized world economy.
- Key point: A clear definition of inclusive growth is required to guide compilation of statistics and to develop informative indicators.
- Notable speaker: Ravi Kanbur, Professor of Economics at Cornell University, emphasized that statistics have a political component and that methodological choices (e.g., survey framing, global poverty line construction) can have major policy implications, including for defining Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators.

### Going beyond GDP
- Drivers creating pressure on GDP-based measures:
  - increased attention to distributional and environmental issues;
  - role of the informal economy;
  - rapid technological developments.
- Discussed approaches:
  - supplement GDP with alternative metrics combining education, health, and living standard factors to better capture welfare dynamics;
  - enhance existing GDP-framework metrics where possible.
- Specific measurement challenges noted:
  - new forms of intermediation services (for example, AirBnB and Uber) and Internet-based consumer benefits widen perceived gaps between GDP, productivity, and welfare;
  - better measurement of volumes and prices of digital services could improve alignment between output, productivity, and welfare.

### Combining statistics
- Integration needs:
  - additional statistics on prices, the labor force, and bilateral trade to better measure impacts such as offshoring.
- Use of multiple data sources:
  - IMF’s Financial Access Survey shows an increase of access to financial services over the past years, with uneven coverage globally;
  - complementary survey data of individuals and firms provide information on segments lacking access and barriers they face.
- Data types emphasized: micro-level data, Big Data, technological innovation, and administrative data can help meet massive compilation challenges for SDG indicators.

### The way forward — conclusions and recommendations
- Consensus points from roundtable led by IMF Deputy Managing Director Tao Zhang:
  - Inclusiveness is difficult to capture in a single metric due to multiple dimensions.
  - Recommend a structured framework with a limited set of clearly defined indicators.
  - International organizations should play an important role in establishing and promoting data standards and coordinating efforts across countries.
  - Emphasize the need to supplement, improve, and combine existing statistics with new and more granular data.
  - Encourage active roles for national and international organizations in developing necessary data and coordinating cross-country efforts.
  - Caution: while leveraging new data sources, maintain focus on traditional statistics.

*Source: IMF News — Statistical Forum on Inclusive Growth–Leaving Nothing Out and Nobody Behind (December 2, 2016).*

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## References

- [https://www.imf.org/en/News/country-focus](https://www.imf.org/en/News/country-focus)
- [PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)
- [IMF Research](https://www.imf.org/en/news/search)
- [The Fourth IMF Statistical Forum](http://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2016/statsforum/)
- [IMF Data](http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm)
- [Financial Access Survey](http://data.imf.org/FAS)
- [https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2016/12/02/statistical-forum-on-inclusive-growth-leaving-nothing-out-and-nobody-behind_