talking about the national accounts: statistics and the democratic conversation diane coyle...
TRANSCRIPT
Talking about the National Accounts: Statistics and the Democratic
ConversationDiane Coyle
Professor of Economics, University of Manchester
IARIW-OECD conference, Paris, 17 April 2015
Outline
• 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 ofcentral 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 collectivejudgement 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
Basic Human Needs Opportunity
Nutrition and Basic Medical Care Undernourishment Depth of food deficit Maternal mortality rate Child mortality rate Deaths from infectious diseases
Water and Sanitation Access to piped water Rural access to improved water source Access to improved sanitation facilities
Shelter Availability of affordable housing Access to electricity Quality of electricity supply Indoor air pollution attributable deaths
Personal Safety Homicide rate Level of violent crime Perceived criminality Political terror Traffic deaths
Access to Basic Knowledge Adult literacy rate Primary school enrollment Lower secondary school enrollment Upper secondary school enrollment Gender parity in secondary enrollment
Access to Information and Communications Mobile telephone subscriptions Internet users Press Freedom Index
Health and Wellness Life expectancy Premature deaths from non-communicable
diseases Obesity rate Outdoor air pollution attributable deaths Suicide rate
Ecosystem Sustainability Greenhouse gas emissions Water withdrawals as a percentage of
resources Biodiversity and habitat
Personal Rights Political rights Freedom of speech Freedom of assembly/association Freedom of movement Private property rights
Personal Freedom and Choice Freedom over life choices Freedom of religion Early marriage Satisfied demand for contraception Corruption
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
Foundations of Wellbeing
UNITED KINGDOM
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
Undernourishment (% of pop.) 5.0 1 N Adult literacy rate (% of pop. aged 15+) 99.0 1 N Political rights (1=full rights; 7=no rights) 1 1 NDepth of food deficit (cal./undernourished person) 8 1 N Primary school enrollment (% of children) 99.8 3 N Freedom of speech (0=low; 2=high) 2 1 SMaternal mortality rate (deaths/100,000 live births) 8 25 N Lower secondary school enrollment (% of children) 106.4 1 N
Freedom of assembly/association (0=low; 2=high) 2 1 N
Child mortality rate (deaths/1,000 live births) 4.6 26 N Upper secondary school enrollment (% of children) 87.6 52 W Freedom of movement (0=low; 4=high) 4 1 NDeaths from infectious diseases (deaths/100,000) 28.5 32 N Gender parity in secondary enrollment (girls/boys) 1.0 1 N Private property rights (0=none; 100=full) 90 3 N
Water and Sanitation 99.89 17 N Access to Information and Communications 89.43 15 N Personal Freedom and Choice 85.83 12 N
Access to piped water (% of pop.) 99.6 19 N Mobile telephone subscriptions (subscriptions/100 people) 123.8 1 N Freedom over life choices (% satisfied) 83.9 31 N
Rural access to improved water source (% of pop.) 100.0 1 N Internet users (% of pop.) 89.8 7 N Freedom of religion (1=low; 4=high) 3 55 WAccess to improved sanitation facilities (% of pop.) 100.0 1 N Press Freedom Index (0=most free; 100=least free) 19.9 27 N Early marriage (% of women aged 15-19) 0.00 1 N
Satisfied demand for contraception (% of women) 92.6 2 S
Corruption (0=high; 100=low) 78 12 N
Shelter 86.13 18 N Health and Wellness 74.01 27 N Tolerance and Inclusion 69.68 21 N
Availability of affordable housing (% satisfied) 43.9 70 N Life expectancy (years) 81.5 10 N Tolerance for immigrants (0=low; 100=high) 79.3 16 N
Access to electricity (% of pop.) 100.0 1 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
Quality of electricity supply (1=low; 7=high) 6.6 9 S Obesity rate (% of pop.) 24.9 111 W Discrim. and viol. against minorities (0=low; 10=high) 5.3 44 N
Household air pollution attr. deaths (deaths/100,000) 0 1 N
Outdoor air pollution attributable deaths (deaths/100,000) 37.7 87 W Religious tolerance (1=low; 4=high) 2 80 W
Suicide rate (deaths/100,000) 7.6 58 W Community safety net (0=low; 100=high) 91.0 23 N
Personal Safety 83.79 20 N Ecosystem Sustainability 54.53 60 N Access to Advanced Education 77.91 4 S
Homicide rate (1= <2/100,000; 5= >20/100,000) 1 1 N Greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalents per GDP) 246.9 4 N Years of tertiary schooling 0.9 19 N
Level of violent crime (1=low; 5=high) 2 20 N Water withdrawals as a percentage of resources 2.6 82 W Women's average years in school 13.6 11 N
Perceived criminality (1=low; 5=high) 3 33 W Biodiv. and habitat (0=no protection; 100=high protection) 70.1 53 N
Inequality in the attainment of edu. (0=low; 1=high) 0.03 12 N
Political terror (1=low; 5=high) 1 1 N Number of globally ranked universities 74 1 S
Traffic deaths (deaths/100,000) 3.7 3 N France, Italy, Japan, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, Spain, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, Republic of, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Israel, and Sweden
GDP per capita rank: 19/133
Social Progress Index rank: 11/133 Social Progress Index score: 84.68
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 welfareFirst 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 listsSecond big challenge - building the conceptual scaffolding for dashboards to measure social welfare and so tell citizens how well policy delivers