When Do Governments Manipulate Official Statistics? An Empirical Analysis

Many countries all over the world have been reported to systematically manipulate official statistics. However, scholarly research has not extensively dealt with the extent and determinants of data manipulation, beyond democracy and autocracy. This paper extends the literature by including institutional factors hypothetically affecting the intensity of data manipulation.Regressing the deviations of GDP – predicted by nighttime lighting data – from „official“ GDP on these institutional factors suggests that economic openness decreases manipulation, while decentralization increases manipulation. Political openness decreases manipulation for countries under-reporting GDP and increases manipulation for countries over-reporting GDP. No effects are found for press freedom and the independence of the statistical office