Philip R Lane: The analytical contribution of external statistics - addressing the challenges

Keynote speech by Mr Philip R Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the Joint European Central Bank, Irving Fisher Committee and Banco de Portugal conference on "Bridging measurement challenges and analytical needs of external statistics: evolution or revolution?", Lisbon, 17 February 2020.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
18 February 2020

Introduction

It is a pleasure to speak at this first edition of the conference on external statistics, which is jointly organised by Banco de Portugal, the Irving Fisher Committee and the European Central Bank. Not only as a central banker but also during my time in academia, I have spent much of my time analysing data on external transactions and international investment position. So it should come as no surprise that I take a very active interest in the programme of this event and look forward to the discussions today.

It is fair to say that the richness and availability of external statistics has increased considerably over the last 20 years. At the same time, the measurement challenges have increased, meaning that there are still many analytical hurdles to overcome when interpreting external statistics.