Government officials use statistics to describe the situation in the economy

10 march 2017 | RBC

RBC journalists have found out why government and law enforcement officials are more optimistic about the economy than people employed in other sectors. The question was raised after the publication of the findings of the monitoring of the economic situation carried out by experts of the Presidential Academy of National Economic and Public Administration, Russian Foreign Trade Academy, and the Gaidar Institute, on a regular basis. Military personnel, interior ministry and federal security service employees as well as federal and municipal level government officials tend to talk about stability in Russia's economy more than others, the study found.

Gleb Pokatovich
Gleb Pokatovich
Deputy Head

 "In surveys like that respondents generally tend to describe the situation based on their personal income, but a government official often talks not as a private citizen but as a representative of the state that has access to statistics," believes Deputy Head of the Analytical Center Gleb Pokatovich. When state employees are talking about the economy, they are looking at the situation not from the point of view of personal wealth but from the point of view of the record low inflation or an increase in household income, so in a way their outlook gets distorted by their job, the expert believes.

Source: RBC