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Statistics, Knowledge and Governance Conference “Statistics: Investment in the Future 2" Prague, 14-15 September 2009. Presentation by Joaquim Oliveira Martins, OECD. Outline. 1. Statistics ,Trust & Governance Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role
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Statistics,Knowledge and GovernanceConference “Statistics: Investment in the Future 2" Prague, 14-15 September 2009 Presentation by Joaquim Oliveira Martins, OECD
Outline 1. Statistics ,Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress
Joint work with Enrico Giovannini and Michaela Gamba • Follow-up on previous work by Giovannini (2007)
Statistics, Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress
Many arguments highlighting the role of information for the formation of expectations and economic outcomes • Democratic mechanisms require a proper measurement of outputs/outcomes delivered by a certain policy • This has provided a rationale for the role for official statistics as a public good • The current crisis has probably exacerbated the need for this role… The role of information in economic and political systems
Ex. 1: Crisis & confidence Confidence shocks played a major role in this crisis
Ex.2: Synchronization of trade flows % of OECD countries experiencing a fall in nominal export values Source: Araujo & Oliveira Martins, Vox EU July 2009.
Ex. 3: Monitoring the Fundamentals But productivity figures often arrive too late…
The Eurobarometer Survey: 30,224 individuals interviewed in 2007. With 58 questions attempting to measure wide aspects of the community life, spanning to the sentiment of EU citizens towards policy issues such as: • Globalisation, trade • Trust in institutions (Government, Parliament, EU) • Trust in official statistics • Plus demographic questions contextualizing the socio-economic lives of the respondents. Statistics & Trust: a test
Econometric results + a number of control variables In all specifications trust in institutions appears to be significantly related to trust in statistics
Statistics, Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress
Challenges for National Statistical Offices • Globalisation fosters demand for internationally comparable statistics • A culture of evidence-based decision making fosters demand for statistics • Monitoring policy outcomes and peer-pressures mechanisms • ICT reduced costs, new private agents entered the market of statistical information • Some numbers are largely quoted, but often difficulty to assess the quality of the data • NSOs are challenged , but still have a privileged position, provided that trust exists (e.g. to gather confidential micro-data information)
Building knowledge about societal progress Number of users Using ICT & Civil society networks to produce and diffuse knowledge A minority Experts Information about societal progress
Knowledge goods • Knowledge has particular characteristics: • Often, it is produced in a decentralised way and has the characteristics of a public good • The role of knowledge networks: wiki-model • Generate complementarities between economic efficiency and social dimensions This implies a change in the way NSOs have functioned as mainly information providers
New role for National Statistical Offices • Should be considered part of the “knowledge industries” • Should consider themselves “knowledge builders” • Should measure their impact on the society looking at what extent they contribute to societal knowledge • Should expand the boundary of their activity, to cover communication, numeracy, impact assessment, etc.
Statistics, Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress
The difficult measurement of progress • The extension of the basic national accounts schemes to cover social and environmental dimensions (gross vs. net accounting, leisure, equity, measurement of outputs vs. outcomes) • The use of a wide range of indicators referring to economic, social and environmental dimensions. The use of composite indicators to summarise them in a single number is also possible (arbitrary assumptions, e.g. weighting schemes) • The use of “subjective” measures of well-being, life-satisfaction or happiness (may be weak link with outcomes)
OECD Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies • Holistic approach • From output to welfare • From “information providers” to “knowledge builders” • From top-down to bottom-up • From “Statistics” to “Sociestics” • Four pillars • Statistical research • Development of ICT tools to help in transforming statistics into knowledge • Advocacy and institutional building • Development of a global infrastructure about progress • Time frame: 2007 – 2011 • 3rd OECD World Forum, BusanOctober 2009