MSA METHODOLOGY

How We Verify

How Matthews Strategic Advisory grades evidence, sources its figures and handles corrections, and the independence principle behind its research.

Methodology · October 2026

Evidence tiers

Every material figure and claim in MSA research carries one of three tiers. The tier describes how the claim was checked. It is a statement about evidence, separate from MSA’s view of what the claim means.

Verified

Checked against an official or primary source. A government release, regulator’s list, statute, court record, company filing or the institution’s own publication, read by MSA.

Corroborated

Reported by a named, reputable source where MSA has not seen the original release. Examples are a wire report of an official figure, a law-firm summary of a regulation, or a data aggregator. The source is always named, and the note says when a press report stands in for an official release.

Intelligence gap

Contested, undated, inconsistent or unconfirmed. MSA states what is missing, gives the range where estimates differ, and does not convert a gap into a point estimate.

Sourcing standards

Primary first. MSA looks for the official release before relying on a report of it.
Dated. Each figure carries its period and the date of the source, so readers can see how current it is.
Named. Sources are named in the text or in a source list. Anonymised operator evidence is labelled as such and reported only at pattern level.
Nothing invented. MSA does not publish figures, quotes or sources it cannot trace. Where a figure cannot be confirmed, it is flagged or left out.
Scenarios are labelled. Stress-test cases and MSA calculations are marked as such and are never presented as forecasts or official statistics.
Current facts are re-checked. Facts about the present, such as office holders, sanctions status and brand presence, are checked against a live source at the time of writing.

Corrections and updates

When a published figure is superseded or found to be wrong, MSA issues a dated update and says what changed. The October 2026 update to The Labour Gap is an example: it replaced an unemployment figure that could not be traced to a published release and set competing estimates side by side. Pages that track fast-moving information show a last-reviewed date.

Independence

Matthews Strategic Advisory is an independent research publisher. It has no brokerage or transaction interest in the markets it covers. MSA research is analysis for information only and is not investment, legal, tax or sanctions advice.

Questions about a source or a figure can be sent to advisory@matthews.asia.