Data is now the fuel that drives business – identifying potential markets, shaping new products and targeting consumers. This year, Significance has partnered with Impact, the magazine of the Market Research Society, to jointly publish a series exploring the past, present and future of the data economy. In this fourth and final part, Timandra Harkness considers what the coming years have in store for the data-driven industries.

Financial investment strategies are often designed and tested using historical market data. But this can frequently give rise to “optimal” strategies that are statistical mirages and perform poorly out in the real world, as David H. Bailey and Marcos López de Prado explain.

The record for oldest human being was set in 1997 by Jeanne Calment of France at 122 years and 164 days. Michael Pearce and Adrian E. Raftery expect that record will be broken in the coming decades.

Randomised controlled trials are often presented as the gold standard for testing new medical treatments. In the early stages of research, however, reports from single trials are likely to show exaggerated effect estimates. Erik van Zwet, Simon Schwab and Sander Greenland explain why – and propose a remedy.

There is much public scepticism about the way science and statistics are used within government, says Ian L. Boyd, a former scientific adviser. But rather than close ranks against scepticism, the science professions within government should embrace it, he argues, and use it to test their own assumptions and motivation.