ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how R. Giffen's obviously disproportionate estimate was later used by A. L. Bowley, another authoritative scholar of the British economy, without taking into account the work done later by Giffen to correct it. The direct method is the name accorded to those estimates based on the calculation of the wealth owned overseas by British residents obtained by making a record of the stock at a certain point in time or of the movements of the assets forming this wealth over the years. The British weekly magazine had in fact been serving a double function as both informer and commentator on the theme of capital invested abroad. The difficulty facing E. Crammond was very similar to the one facing scholars researching British annual income from abroad. It was more deeply rooted in the empirical context of British foreign movements and it also focused on another historical period that is 1899-1903.
