The British mathematician and physicist Lord Kelvin famously said “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” In 1948, the post-war British Government badly needed to improve the nation’s economy. To help it draw up the right policies for jobs and growth, the Government took a scientific approach - one of which Lord Kelvin would have been proud. Government statisticians were instructed to count, classify and measure the economic activity of every business in the country. They developed a set of Standard Industrial Classification codes and the data they collected was used to shape policy in every aspect of the British economy. new report by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research , and supported by Google, updates these SIC codes to include the new, fast growing digital sector. After 65 years, the old codes are out of date. One in ten companies in the UK are now classified vaguely as ‘other’. One in five have no classification at all. Posted by Hal Varian, Chief Economist
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