Next week the US government releases its latest data on gross domestic product for the third quarter of 2019. It’s a fair bet that this will trigger debate among pundits in Washington and on Wall Street about whether the world’s largest economy is heading for a recession — and what that might mean for the re-election of Donald Trump.
But, as investors scrutinise those seemingly precise digits, are we missing a trick? Is it possible that apparently crucial GDP numbers are actually an illusion — or a distortion — when it comes to assessing the economy?
That is the seemingly heretical idea currently being tossed around some parts of America’s Federal Reserve, as well as in academia and parts of Wall Street. For as Silicon Valley keeps delivering new technological innovations, these are not only transforming how we live but also overall growth.