Maltese residents continue to travel abroad almost in droves during the year, as the latest NSO figures show. That is confusing analysts, who note an uneven distribution of income and wealth in our society, as well as policy makers who do not take the apparent wellbeing of the economy at face value. The confusing signals do not come from tourism alone.

Consumption expenditure is rising, and that is another confusing signal. Do people have more money to spend, thereby contradicting the perception that many are feeling squeezed, because of the erosion of incomes by inflation? “It’s a puzzlement,” the King of Siam told Anna, his children’s tutor, in the film The King And I.

The Maltese economy has always been a puzzle for those who follow it closely. How the people packed in growing numbers on this not very fertile rock, which has to import the bulk of its requirements, have amassed such a volume of foreign and domestic financial assets, bought four out of five of their homes and otherwise done not too badly, thank you very much, is difficult to explain.

More difficult than the fact that pricey flats and penthouses are still snapped up before they reach the market, albeit at a slower rate than hitherto, along with other indicators of conspicuous consumption.

The number of departures of Maltese from our ports continues to rise. Such departures are classified as outward tourism. The gross figure suggests that about one in two Maltese are going abroad each year, for whatever reason.

Were one able to disaggregate, or if the NSO’s surveys break down the outcome between travelling for business and for pleasure, one would know how many paid for a holiday abroad, and how many to chase business opportunities, or to cultivate those they have already started exploiting. In each category there would have been repeat visits.

The fact remains, though, that between one in three and one in four Maltese went for some sort of a visit abroad. Are people really feeling pinched, as realists as well as doomsayers suggest? Black and rosy conclusions should be tested against segmentation.

Segments of the population who have it good are travelling and those who are on lower incomes stay at home. It is not they who are to be found in eating places.

Segmenting and breaking down averages offer a more realistic framework within which to try to understand what is going on without giving it up as more than just a puzzlement.

Consumption too has to be sliced up to see where outlays are going. Revenue from consumption taxes, for instance, cannot be a good indicator taken gross. Consumers are paying more tax for the same basket of needs, or truckload of white good requirements.

Segmenting gives a wider perspective. Along with it declining savings offer their explanation. People are saving less on average, which means that some are spending out of past savings.

Are they doing so because they have stopped caring about tomorrow, have undergone a culture change and kissed thrift good-bye, or because current disposable income is not enough to make ends meet?

Possibly, for a mixture of all three reasons, depending on the segment they come from.

Behavioural analysis is just as important, if not more so, than the figures. It is also more difficult to try to carry out. Higher adjusted outward bound tourism is a fact. Dispersed consumption that adds marginal expenditure, such as on mobile telephony, is also a fact.

It could be a behavioural fact that one is looking less hard at ones means, especially if one is emboldened by the banks’ relentless efforts to encourage borrowing to finance consumption. That vies for supremacy with the parallel frenetic drive to induce investors to convert Maltese lira assets into foreign currency financial assets.

Government spokespersons, to counter comment and criticism that despondency prevails, read positives in the confusing signals and zoom in on higher consumption and outward bound tourism. They might take time to look at other releases by the NSO, to see what they are saying.

That which selects indicators emanating from the balance of payments is a current one that suggests a touch of sobriety to the hoopla-hoopla drum beaters. One has to look, for instance, at the ratio of Malta’s exports of goods and services and of imports to the gross domestic product (at current prices).

Once again, disaggregation is important particularly to see what imports stayed up or rose. But it is a fact that the Central Bank has at times expressed worry that we are saving less, spending more on imports, and buying more foreign currency. It is worried because the economy essentially depends on exports of goods and services for its sustainable growths.

Understanding what is going on is indeed a puzzlement. The King of Siam would feel at home here.