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It’s GERS week! Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) 2019-20 will be published by the Scottish Government on Wednesday 26th August 2020 at 9.30 am. To celebrate this high profile publication, Graeme Roy, the Director of the Institute is joined by Mairi Spowage, the Deputy Director to talk about GERS, what it is, and try to dispel some of the myths that surround it. To accompany this podcast, we have published a GERS guide on our website for you to read through to see all the myths and issues discussed at length. Enjoy this annual ritual in Scottish political debate…
Chair
Graeme Roy, Fraser of Allander Institute
Guests
Mairi Spowage, Fraser of Allander Institute
A BRIEF ASIDE
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Timestamps
(00:58) What is GERS?
(03:00) The history of GERS
(05:15) What does it mean that GERS is an “accredited” National Statistics publication
(08:22) The evolution of GERS in terms of quality of methods
(11:04) What does it mean that some of the figures in GERS are estimated?
(20:51) What are the controversial spending elements?
(23:45) What have recent issues been about the interpretation of GERS?
(25:58) Should GERS do more to compare to other regions of the UK rather than the UK as a whole?
(29:40) GERS and the constitutional debate
Authors
Graeme Roy
Dean of External Engagement in the College of Social Sciences at Glasgow University and previously director of the Fraser of Allander Institute.
Mairi is the Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute. Previously, she was the Deputy Chief Executive of the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Head of National Accounts at the Scottish Government and has over a decade of experience working in different areas of statistics and analysis.