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Evolution of Statistics in Governance: Enhancing Trust and Knowledge for Societal Progress

Explore the evolving role of statistics in governance, trust, knowledge, and societal progress. Address challenges for National Statistical Offices, the importance of trust in statistics, and the shift towards 'Sociestics.' Learn about the OECD Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies and the development of new indicators. Presentation by Joaquim Oliveira Martins, OECD.

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Evolution of Statistics in Governance: Enhancing Trust and Knowledge for Societal Progress

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  1. Statistics,Knowledge and GovernanceConference “Statistics: Investment in the Future 2" Prague, 14-15 September 2009 Presentation by Joaquim Oliveira Martins, OECD

  2. Outline 1. Statistics ,Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress

  3. Joint work with Enrico Giovannini and Michaela Gamba • Follow-up on previous work by Giovannini (2007)

  4. Statistics, Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress

  5. 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

  6. Ex. 1: Crisis & confidence Confidence shocks played a major role in this crisis

  7. Ex.2: Synchronization of trade flows % of OECD countries experiencing a fall in nominal export values Source: Araujo & Oliveira Martins, Vox EU July 2009.

  8. Ex. 3: Monitoring the Fundamentals But productivity figures often arrive too late…

  9. 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

  10. Trust in Statistics vs. Trust in Institutions

  11. Econometric results + a number of control variables In all specifications trust in institutions appears to be significantly related to trust in statistics

  12. Statistics, Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress

  13. 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)

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. 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.

  17. From Statistics to ‘Sociestics’

  18. Statistics, Trust & Governance • Statistics & Knowledge: an evolving role • The search for new indicators of societal progress

  19. 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)

  20. 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

  21. Thank you!

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