When it comes to science, we trust reputable universities, and peer-reviewed papers in top trade journals. Led by the Nobel prize, these organizations have built their reputations and earned our trust over decades.

When it comes to economic/business statistics, government statistics is sometimes manipulated. Grandpa told me about poverty statistics in Chinese villages vs cities.

A more familiar example of ambiguous counting — PWM tech counting defects in each application .. what constitutes a defect? How do you assign a count to related defects of multiple symptoms? What if a defect in one application relates to a defect in another?

Some governments are more transparent and more trust worthy. Consider SG, Hongkong and some Scandinavian nations.

Beside the governments, we often trust leading economists and reputable news agencies. (No scientific journal per se.)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2020/02/28/how-beijing-is-losing-support-for-its-belt-and-road-initiative is a 2020 analysis of One-Belt-One-Road :

• many news sites have published articles and pretty graphics which state things like, “The Belt and Road is a $900 million/$1 trillion/$5 trillion dollar initiative spanning 65 countries, 60% of the world’s population, 75% of energy resources, and 30% of GDP,”
• Moody’s claiming that Chinese overseas investment has declined due to an increased awareness of the risks inherent to major BRI projects.
• Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, among other countries have canceled, downsized, or postponed key BRI projects
• Nowadays, for every project lumped into the BRI—just because it’s financed by a Chinese bank, or a Chinese contractor is providing the laborers —there must be a thousand confused people wondering what, exactly, is the Belt and Road Initiative.”