Transcript Talking about the National Accounts: Statistics and the

Talking about the National Accounts:
Statistics and the Democratic
Conversation
Diane Coyle
Professor of Economics, University of Manchester
IARIW-OECD conference, Paris, 17 April 2015
[email protected]
Outline
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Statistical stories in politics
Economists and statistics
What is the purpose of the SNA?
What is the purpose of suggested
alternatives?
• The need for a social welfare framework
• Holding policy to account with statistics
Source: ONS
History then and now
Source: http://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/UKdata/
Chart 1 GDP projection based on market interest rate
expectations and £375 billion purchased assets
The fan chart depicts the probability of various outcomes for GDP growth. It has been conditioned on the assumption that the stock of purchased assets financed by the issuance of
central bank reserves remains at £375 billion throughout the forecast period. To the left of the vertical dashed line, the distribution reflects the likelihood of revisions to the data over the past;
to the right, it reflects uncertainty over the evolution of GDP growth in the future. If economic circumstances identical to today’s were to prevail on 100 occasions, the MPC’s best collective
judgement is that the mature estimate of GDP growth would lie within the darkest central band on only 30 of those occasions. The fan chart is constructed so that outturns are also expected
to lie within each pair of the lighter green areas on 30 occasions. In any particular quarter of the forecast period, GDP growth is therefore expected to lie somewhere within the fan on 90 out
of 100 occasions. And on the remaining 10 out of 100 occasions GDP growth can fall anywhere outside the green area of the fan chart. Over the forecast period, this has been depicted by
the light grey background. See the box on page 39 of the November 2007 Inflation Report for a fuller description of the fan chart and what it represents.
Google it!
Source: Bank of England
A reversal of fortunes
Did progress stop in 1973?
Source: Avner Offer
SOCIAL PROGRESS INDEX 2014 FRAMEWORK
Social Progress Index
Basic Human Needs
Foundations of Wellbeing
Opportunity
Nutrition and Basic Medical Care
 Undernourishment
 Depth of food deficit
 Maternal mortality rate
 Child mortality rate
 Deaths from infectious diseases
Access to Basic Knowledge
 Adult literacy rate
 Primary school enrollment
 Lower secondary school enrollment
 Upper secondary school enrollment
 Gender parity in secondary enrollment
Personal Rights
 Political rights
 Freedom of speech
 Freedom of assembly/association
 Freedom of movement
 Private property rights
Water and Sanitation
 Access to piped water
 Rural access to improved water source
 Access to improved sanitation facilities
Access to Information and Communications
 Mobile telephone subscriptions
 Internet users
 Press Freedom Index
Shelter
 Availability of affordable housing
 Access to electricity
 Quality of electricity supply
 Indoor air pollution attributable deaths
Health and Wellness
 Life expectancy
 Premature deaths from non-communicable
diseases
 Obesity rate
 Outdoor air pollution attributable deaths
 Suicide rate
Personal Freedom and Choice
 Freedom over life choices
 Freedom of religion
 Early marriage
 Satisfied demand for contraception
 Corruption
Personal Safety
 Homicide rate
 Level of violent crime
 Perceived criminality
 Political terror
 Traffic deaths
Ecosystem Sustainability
 Greenhouse gas emissions
 Water withdrawals as a percentage of
resources
 Biodiversity and habitat
Tolerance and Inclusion
 Tolerance for immigrants
 Tolerance for homosexuals
 Discrimination and violence against minorities
 Religious tolerance
 Community safety net
Access to Advanced Education
 Years of tertiary schooling
 Women’s average years in school
 Inequality in the attainment of education
 Globally ranked universities
Social Progress Index rank: 11/133
Social Progress Index score: 84.68
UNITED KINGDOM
GDP per capita rank: 19/133
Score
Rank
Score
Rank
Score
Rank
BASIC HUMAN NEEDS
92.22
19
N
FOUNDATIONS OF WELLBEING
79.04
15
N
OPPORTUNITY
82.78
6
N
Nutrition and Basic Medical Care
99.09
27
N
Access to Basic Knowledge
98.17
18
N
Personal Rights
97.68
2
S
Adult literacy rate (% of pop. aged 15+)
99.0
1
1
1
N
99.8
3
Freedom of speech (0=low; 2=high)
2
1
S
Lower secondary school enrollment (% of children)
106.4
1
Freedom of assembly/association (0=low; 2=high)
2
1
N
Upper secondary school enrollment (% of children)
87.6
52
Freedom of movement (0=low; 4=high)
4
1
N
Gender parity in secondary enrollment (girls/boys)
1.0
1
N
N
N
W
N
Political rights (1=full rights; 7=no rights)
Primary school enrollment (% of children)
Private property rights (0=none; 100=full)
90
3
N
85.83
12
N
83.9
31
N
3
55
W
Early marriage (% of women aged 15-19)
0.00
1
N
Satisfied demand for contraception (% of women)
92.6
2
S
78
12
N
69.68
21
N
5.0
1
Depth of food deficit (cal./undernourished person)
8
1
Maternal mortality rate (deaths/100,000 live births)
8
25
Child mortality rate (deaths/1,000 live births)
4.6
26
Deaths from infectious diseases (deaths/100,000)
28.5
32
N
N
N
N
N
99.89
17
N
Access to Information and Communications
89.43
15
N
Personal Freedom and Choice
Access to piped water (% of pop.)
99.6
19
123.8
1
1
Internet users (% of pop.)
89.8
7
Access to improved sanitation facilities (% of pop.)
100.0
1
Press Freedom Index (0=most free; 100=least free)
19.9
27
N
N
N
Freedom over life choices (% satisfied)
100.0
N
N
N
Mobile telephone subscriptions (subscriptions/100 people)
Rural access to improved water source (% of pop.)
Undernourishment (% of pop.)
Water and Sanitation
Freedom of religion (1=low; 4=high)
Corruption (0=high; 100=low)
86.13
18
N
Health and Wellness
Availability of affordable housing (% satisfied)
43.9
70
N
Access to electricity (% of pop.)
100.0
1
N
6.6
9
0
1
S
N
Shelter
Quality of electricity supply (1=low; 7=high)
Household air pollution attr. deaths (deaths/100,000)
Personal Safety
83.79
27
N
Tolerance and Inclusion
Life expectancy (years)
81.5
10
N
Tolerance for immigrants (0=low; 100=high)
79.3
16
N
Premature deaths from non-comm. diseases (prob. of dying)
12.0
22
W
Tolerance for homosexuals (0=low; 100=high)
76.9
10
N
Discrim. and viol. against minorities (0=low; 10=high)
5.3
44
N
2
80
W
Community safety net (0=low; 100=high)
91.0
23
N
77.91
4
S
Obesity rate (% of pop.)
24.9
111
Outdoor air pollution attributable deaths (deaths/100,000)
37.7
87
Suicide rate (deaths/100,000)
7.6
58
W
W
W
54.53
60
N
Access to Advanced Education
N
W
N
Years of tertiary schooling
0.9
19
N
Women's average years in school
13.6
11
N
Inequality in the attainment of edu. (0=low; 1=high)
0.03
12
N
74
1
S
20
N
Ecosystem Sustainability
N
N
W
N
N
Greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalents per GDP)
Homicide rate (1= <2/100,000; 5= >20/100,000)
1
1
Level of violent crime (1=low; 5=high)
2
20
Perceived criminality (1=low; 5=high)
3
33
Political terror (1=low; 5=high)
1
1
3.7
3
Traffic deaths (deaths/100,000)
74.01
France, Italy, Japan, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, Spain, New
Zealand, Canada, Korea, Republic of, Australia, Denmark,
Germany, Israel, and Sweden
246.9
4
Water withdrawals as a percentage of resources
2.6
82
Biodiv. and habitat (0=no protection; 100=high protection)
70.1
53
Religious tolerance (1=low; 4=high)
Number of globally ranked universities
ONS Wheel of Wellbeing
GDP versus politics
Conclusions – two big challenges
• SNA statistics are misused (by politicians and economists) –
but are becoming not fit for (democratic) purpose
• There are potentially more efficient ways measuring
aggregate activity, and better ways of measuring welfare
First big challenge - national statistical offices need to think
about radically changing the balance of their work
• But GDP has an implicit welfare economics behind it, and
‘Beyond GDP’ approaches do not
• So dashboards risk being unstructured laundry lists
Second big challenge - building the conceptual scaffolding
for dashboards to measure social welfare and so tell
citizens how well policy delivers