Sir George Ernest Francis Wood KBE ISO (13 July 1900 – 18 December 1978) was a New Zealand economist and statistician.
[1][2] He was educated at Greymouth District High School,[3] and went on to study economics at Victoria University College, graduating Master of Arts with second-class honours in 1924.
[9] During his tenure, the Statistics Department began producing balance of payments data again in 1950 after a 22-year hiatus, and increased the level of detail in the information.
He instigated the consumer price index (CPI) in New Zealand, and ensured that the figures were released in a timely fashion, generally within 10 days of the end of the period under review.
[18] In the 1975 Queen's Birthday Honours, Wood was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for public services, especially as chairman of the Consumer Council since 1959.
[22] Jack Lewin, government statistician from 1969 to 1973, paid tribute, saying that Wood was "small in inches but big in stature".