Professional Documents
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07-Measures of Success 20210227
07-Measures of Success 20210227
Measures of
success:
The goals of
government
CCGL 9042
Dr. Larry Baum and Dr. Jack Tsao
Song 1 Song 2
Outline
• What’s the goal?
• Popular measures
– GDP
– Others
• Other measures
– Economic
– Health
– Education
– Composite
What’s the goal?
• Who should be helped?
– A whole country or region?
– The greatest number of people in a
country or region?
– Those at the bottom?
• Economic conservative-liberal divide
– Right (conservative)
• Seeks economic liberty, individual
opportunity, & low taxes.
• Feels taxing income cuts incentive and
innovation.
– Left (liberal)
• Seeks economic equality and income
redistribution.
• Feels shrinking government leaves poor
unprotected.
What’s the goal?
• Which is the main goal?
– Wealth?
– Health?
– Other?
• When?
– Short term?
– Long term?
• How? Compare conditions to see
what helps or hinders so that we
can adjust policy.
– Compare countries.
– View a country over time.
– View the world over time.
Earliest forms of mercantilism appeared in the ancient Republic of Venice.
Canaletto. Painting by Giovanni Antonio.
https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/370984088032481597/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_map_of_the_Dutch_Language.png
How good are these measures?
• If we want to find the most
successful country, we may look at
a level, like GDP/capita.
• But if we want to find which
countries are doing best at
improving, we may look at a rate of
change, like GDP growth rate.
• Let’s look at growth rate. How good
is GDP compared to other
measures?
Advantages of GDP
growth rate
Visualizing the Structure of the World Economy and Population in One Chart
https://youtu.be/CRfc85AIH3c (2:45)
Disadvantages of GDP
growth rate
• Lumps together everyone in a country
• Raised by a single lucrative industry
even if it benefits only a small elite
• Angola
– Due to oil, GDP grew the fastest in the
world (11%/yr) in 2001-10.
– China’s biggest oil supplier (2010)
– But 43% of Angolans live on <HK$10/day
(2007-11, UNICEF).
• Turkmenistan
– 4th largest natural gas reserves in the
world
– Due to gas, GDP grew 12% in 2013.
– 3rd worst press freedom in the world
(Reporters Without Borders), thus hard to
get data, but reports of extreme
corruption and wealth concentration
Disadvantages of GDP growth rate
• Vast Majority Income (VMI)
– Corrects for income inequality in GDP
– Mean income per capita of first 80% of the population in income distribution
VMI/GDP ratio
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/economy-finance/00.keynote_milanovic.pdf
Poverty: national
• By country: % living below
poverty line (US$1.9/day)
• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-
of-the-population-living-in-extreme-povert
y?tab=map&year=1981
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
Poverty: global
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Infant_Mortality_Rate_by_Region_1950-2050.png
Health Adjusted Life Years
• Disability-adjusted life years: DALYs,
number of lost years of healthy life,
using weighting factors to reduce value
of life with disability
• Global Burden of Disease study:
http://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/
• Can calculate impact of health
interventions on DALYs to direct
spending and effort to where it will do
the most good: Alzheimer’s vs.
measles, war vs. pain in the neck
• Might extend these measures beyond
health.
Health Priorities
• Know the numbers to set priorities
• How many people are born or die each day?
– Births:
• 380,000
– Deaths:
• 170,000
• Maybe news should show those numbers instead of numbers like these:
Education
• Learning-adjusted years of schooling:
LAYS, number of years of education in a high-performing cou
ntry
(like Singapore)
– Studies show some programs
don’t help
• Smaller class size
• More textbooks
– Studies show some programs
do help (~US$30/LAYS)
• Teaching by learning level,
not grade
• Structured lesson plans and
teacher monitoring
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Classroom_with_children_in_the_primary_school_of_Don_Puay,_Laos.jpg
http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/801901603314530125/pdf/How-to-Improve-Education-Outcomes-Most-E
fficiently-A-Comparison-of-150-Interventions-Using-the-New-Learning-Adjusted-Years-of-Schooling-Metric.pdf
Which measure is best?
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/11/8/18052076/human-history-in-one-chart-industrial-revolution
Composite measures
• Each measure conveys part of the picture.
• More complete view if combine measures.
• Several have been compiled.
Human Development Index
Most
inequality:
Angola, and
generally
countries with
lowest HDI
Social Progress Index
• Created in the last few years by several academics
• http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_what_the_social_progress_i
ndex_can_reveal_about_your_country
from 4:02 to 14:46.
• Includes many important aspects, including
freedom, lack of corruption, health, wealth, etc.:
https://www.socialprogress.org/
Human Capital Index
• The contribution of health and education to
the productivity of the next generation of
workers
• World Bank announced the HCI in 2018.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCUIAQkOwKw&list=PLopq6yGfmF
AviugLm8wSSNRrw8r2dQ5sR&index=8
(2:59)
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-07-02/prosperous-equality
Millennium Development Goals
• World development goals agreed by all UN member states
• Agreed in 2000 to be achieved by 2015
• Eight major goals
– Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
– Achieve universal primary education
– Promote gender equality and empower women
– Reduce child mortality
– Improve maternal health
– Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
– Ensure environmental sustainability
– Develop a global partnership for development
Millennium Development Goals
• The MDGs had 21 specific targets.
• Just goals, not action
– How did declaring goals accomplish anything?
– It’s hard to know if they did.
– At least they focused effort of people,
governments, and other organizations.
• Some targets achieved, but some weren’t.
• Let’s look at some of them.
Millennium Development Goals
Target 1A: Halve, between
1990 and 2015, the
proportion of people
living on less than $1.25 a
day
Millennium Development Goals
Target 2A: By 2015, all
children can complete
primary school
X
Millennium Development Goals
Target 4A: Reduce by two-
thirds, between 1990 and
2015, the under-five
mortality rate
X
Millennium Development Goals
Target 6A: Have
begun to reverse the
spread of HIV/AIDS
by 2015
Millennium Development Goals
Target 7C: Halve, by
2015, the proportion
of the population
without safe drinking
water and sanitation
Millennium Development Goals
Target 8D: Resolve
debt problems of
developing countries
Millennium Development Goals
Within Goal 8: http://www.mdgmonitor.org/mdg-8-develop-a
-global-partnership-for-development/
Overseas
development
Hong Kong?
assistance
Rich countries in UN
committed to give
>0.7% of GNP as ODA
since 1970s.
X
Millennium Development Goals