King’s College London: King’s Business School to host Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence

King’s Business School has been announced as the new host of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) from Spring 2023. The Business School will take ESCoE into the next phase of its activity as an internationally influential centre for the analysis of emerging and future issues in economic measurement, including expanding its focus to cover climate change and the environment.

Founded in 2017 and supported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), ESCoE is an established hub of expertise made up of a consortium of world-leading academic institutions to promote the generation and development of research on economic measurement for the modern world. It also benefits from a wider network of distinguished academic experts, thought leaders and partners across the UK and internationally. ESCoE partners are united by an interest in improving the quality of economic statistics and exploring novel forms of measurement to support informed decision-making that affects society at large.

Led by King’s Business School, in its next phase ESCoE will continue to bring together researchers from around the world in order to improve economic and environmental-economic measurement. ESCoE’s goal will be to support the development of new approaches underpinned by high quality research and the use of new and innovative data sources. The six anticipated research areas for ESCoE are:

Inclusive Wealth Measures and looking beyond GDP
National Accounts
Net-zero, Climate change and the Environment
Subnational Statistics
Productivity and Innovation
Labour Markets and Households
ESCoE will also play a key role in the education and convening of the wider economic statistics community.

I am delighted to announce the start of the next phase of ESCoE, signifying a key step in establishing economic measurement as a long-term focus, not just a one-off response to the Bean Review in 2016. Working with leading experts to improve economic statistics is central to the ONS’s mission to be radical and ambitious in meeting the needs of a rapidly-changing economy. I am particularly pleased with widening ESCoE’s focus better to capture the trade-offs between economic and environmental issues.
– Mike Keoghan, Deputy National Statistician for Economic and Social Statistics, ONS
Building on the foundations we have established, we look forward to this next stage for ESCoE. Engaging with statistical agencies, policymakers, and society more broadly, we seek to have impact on decision-making through better measurement of the modern economy.
– Rebecca Riley, Professor of Practice in Economics at King’s Business School and Director of ESCoE