Investigations are Dig's sourced deep dives. Each one takes a big question, digs down to what we can actually check (the evidence, the incentives, what is documented and what is not) and ends with what you can do today.
How Dig investigates
- Kinds
- Every investigation is one of four kinds: Forgotten (knowledge that may have been lost), Assumption (a belief that quietly limits us), Stage (what a next stage of development could look like) or Meaning (what holds us back and what gives life direction).
- Verified claims
- Before publishing, each factual claim (quotes, dates, numbers, named sources) is checked against the text of the page it cites. Claims that do not hold up are removed.
- Documented gap
- Something a fetched source itself says is missing, disputed or withheld, such as sealed or destroyed records.
- Speculative gap
- A gap Dig infers but no source states. It is always labelled as inference.
- WHAT IF?
- Dig's own open-ended speculation about alternative explanations the sources may not cover. It is not fact-checked and should be read as thinking aloud.
- What you can do today
- One concrete step a reader can take to test the idea or act on it.
Investigations tagged economic-measurement. Show all
Where did the assumption that GDP measures national success come from, who benefits from its persistence, and what would change if we dropped it?
The sources suggest GDP persists in part because it was embedded into international financial architecture after 1944, and shifting away would be extremely complicated, expensive and disruptive, potentially requiring changes on an international level (Carnegie UK).