Special Report No. 03 of 2002 on Policy Timeline and Time Series Data for Kenya: an Analytical Data Compendium

Abstract

There have been various efforts at publishing an extended time series of data for Kenya. These efforts have had a dual aim. First was to make available, in one convenient location, data that would otherwise need to be extracted from periodic publications, and secondly, to put in series the most up to date revisions of data where periodic publications have not always provided them. In some cases revisions to data have been published but have not been backdated, while in others cases changes in base year or other similar statistical modifications have not been chained to previous series. In these, and similar cases, the publication of extended time series data provides a useful and convenient database. Primary data coming from various sources are sometimes revised but revisions are not always conveyed to those secondary publications that are usually the most available source to users. Furthermore, long entrenched conventions have lead to the use of similar terminology to describe what are actually different concepts. This can easily lead to sterile debate. Even where concepts are the same, different official sources can (and do) compute them differently, and actually publish different results due to errors and omissions...