Survey-based measures are nudging upwards.
Inflation had been nudging upwards because of those oil prices.
In 1997, GDP per head nudged upwards, for the first time since the early 1980s.
That criterion has been nudged upwards, in response to new data about prices and purchasing power, to $1.25.
Whereas other big oil exporters have boomed on the back of high prices, Iran has grown sluggishly, nudging upwards only last year to 3.5%.
Over the same period, R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP nudged upwards from 0.36percentto0.45percentr cent, and the population of active researchers expanded from 150,000 to 190,000.
But the pace of these tiny, incremental changes – and the achingly slow nudging upwards of state-school percentages at Oxbridge, in particular – means few of us will be around to vouch for that.
Opinion polls, which showed a drastic slide in American prestige, have nudged upwards under Mr Obama, with his own popularity far higher than that of the nation he represents (see article).Yet the constant refrain, heard on Cairo's streets as well as from media pundits, is that Arabs and Muslims would like to see Mr Obama's words matched by deeds.
True to the roller-coaster history of the dotcom market, Baidu's share price surged from the initial float price of $27 to a giddy $154 before plunging back down below $70, despite reporting a year-on-year tripling of quarterly profits, and more recently nudging upwards again.
Not only is its population nudging upwards, but it is evolving into a significant food and wine destination.
