Census data have a real impact on the lives of Australians, from determining political representation through the distribution of electorates, to the allocation of government funding.
The numerical basis used to study African economies suffers from major knowledge gaps. This needs to improve if numbers are to inform policies that will encourage growth and push back poverty.
Evidence shows that in economies like that of Ghana, small firms do fine, but it’s the large firms that seem to suffer constraints on their growth in numbers.
Why does the number of members of Australia’s lower house fluctuate?
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The number of members of the House of Representatives is variable. It is a result of a formula given in the Constitution.
Demand is growing for statistical ecologists to research climate change. Rapidly growing mega-cities in Africa, like Lagos, face the highest risks.
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
By linking censuses through time or by combining other information with the census, many more important policy questions can be answered than if we used one dataset alone.
Media predictions aren’t usually great, but those from 2015 were historically bad.
Ray Stubblebine/Reuters
If you’re looking to win your colleagues’ and friends’ respect in a footy tipping competition you can do a whole lot worse than simply tuning out of the countless hours of TV and radio analysis.
Try convincing Australian sports fans that Hawthorn’s dominance in the AFL is purely down to a cosmological coin flip.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
All sides in the debate on gun control in the United States are quick to point to numbers they say back their arguments. But are they playing fair with those figures?
Rain interrupts a World Twenty20 game in Sri Lanka in 2012.
Reuters/Philip Brown
When a cricket match is cut short there’s a way to work out how many runs are needed in any reduced over game. That’s okay for the long form game but it doesn’t work for the shorter matches.
Can the Cowboys do it again and win a back to back NRL grand final?
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Why do white players seem so intent on preserving an unspoken set of rules?
Roosters (here playing against the Rabbitohs in Sydney last Friday) are odds-on favourite to win this year’s grand final. But are they the really the best team to take out the 2015 title?
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Professor, Future Fellow and Head of Statistics at UNSW, and a Deputy Director of the Australian Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS), UNSW Sydney