As Kelly McParland put it, it’s “another reason to legalize everything nasty“:
Italy learnt it was no longer in a recession on Wednesday thanks to a change in data calculations across the European Union which includes illegal economic activities such as prostitution and drugs in the GDP measure.
Adding illegal revenue from hookers, narcotics and black market cigarettes and alcohol to the eurozone’s third-biggest economy boosted gross domestic product figures.
GDP rose slightly from a 0.1 percent decline for the first quarter to a flat reading, the national institute of statistics said.
Although ISTAT confirmed a 0.2 percent decline for the second quarter, the revision of the first quarter data meant Italy had escaped its third recession in the last six years.
The economy must contract for two consecutive quarters, from output in the previous quarter, for a country to be technically in recession.
It’s merely a change in the statistical measurement, not an actual increase in Italian economic activity. And, given that illegal revenue pretty much by definition isn’t (and can’t be) accurately tracked, it’s only an estimated value anyway.
