Main content

WS More or Less: Ireland’s Shock GDP figures

Does Ireland really have the fasted growing economy in the world? More Or Less investigates.

The Irish Central Statistics Office has released figures showing that Ireland’s economy grew by 26% in 2015. That would make it the fastest growing economy in the world. But American economist Paul Krugman described this as “leprechaun economics” as this growth rate is so unrealistically high. More or Less explores how multinational companies with headquarters in Ireland have led to an accounting headache for working out the country’s GDP.

Also, the mobile gaming app Pokemon Go has taken the US by storm and is now spreading across the world. But does Pokemon Go really have 26 million daily active users in the US? More Or Less investigates.

Release date:

Available now

9 minutes

Unlock the history and truth behind the data with The OU

Explore how numbers shape, and sometimes mislead us, with The Open University.

When can you trust statistics?

When can you trust statistics?

ĢƵ Ideas discovers three easy ways to help make sense of statistics.

Podcast