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A Novel Picture of the Disparities in the World |
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Wednesday, 30 July 2008 |
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For GDP per capita 80 countries were lagging behind Sweden for more than 70 years, of them 36 countries more than 160 years
The time distance approach can contribute a broader way of thinking and changed semantics into the present state-of-the-art of comparative analysis for the methodology to measure and assess the overall “position” and “progress” among and within countries.
In the empirical part S-time-distances were estimated for 160 countries for GDP per capita in 2003 and for about 190 countries for female life expectancy and for infant mortality in 2005 against the long-term series for Sweden as a benchmark.
A novel added dimension of the disparity in the world is shown: one half of the countries (80 countries) were lagging Sweden by more than 70 years, of them 36 countries even for more than 160 years. For infant mortality the median value was 57 years and for female life expectancy 53 years.
The respective Gini coefficient for GDP per capita of 0.515 is the static counterpart of the S-time-distance measure. Both measures are complementing each other but the story-telling capability to policy makers and public concerned with the world situation is much greater for the S-time-distance results.
Comparisons between EU27, USA and China illustrate the theoretical points that the degree of disparity may be very different in static terms and in time distance. This conclusion was very strong in the analysis of the Human Development Index (HDI) which raises a set of questions rather than presenting answers: how to treat and interpret inter-temporal changes of composite indicators?
This article prepared for presentation at the 30th General Conference of the International Associations for Research in Income and Wealth is available also on http://www.iariw.org/papers/2008/sicherl.pdf .
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Official development assistance alert - a point for the G8 Summit |
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Friday, 27 June 2008 |
G7 Countries Average is lagging 5 years behind the line to the UN 2015 target.
For the net official development assistance 2007 was another disappointing year. The indicator percentage of gross national income devoted to official development assistance (ODA/GNI) was studied in relation to the assumed line to the UN 2015 target of 0.7%. Several of the analysed countries are not officially committed to this target but a common benchmark allows also for the relative comparisons of the assistance effort. S-time-distance measure was used to get an easily understandable overview of the situation of whether the 22 DAC countries are on- or off- the track to this MDG target.
Tracking the timetable for reaching the UN target with time distance showed how widely the performance in 2007 was off the track: the delay of 5 or 4 years for G7 as a group and for DAC total, respectively, is a drastic underachievement. In the seventh year the ODA/GNI value was at the level supposed to be achieved already in 2002 and 2003, respectively, on the line to the UN target. Also the hypothetical projections for 2010 by the OECD-DAC Secretariat indicate that no radical breakthrough is in sight as the time gap would stay unchanged: 5 and 4 years, respectively; the percentage shortfall would amount to 54% for the USA and 59% for Japan. Public awareness of these facts should be instrumental for public pressure on the governments for far-reaching improvements in this domain.
There is a wide gap between the development assistance efforts among the observed 22 countries. The ODA/GNI value in the 5 European countries that have already reached the 0.7% target is in relative terms four times higher than in the last group where it is below 0.2%. It is sad that the latter group devoting less than 0.2% of their GNI for official development aid includes 57% of the population of the DAC countries. Furthermore, the whole 88% of population is in the countries with values below 0.4% and between 2-7 years behind the line to target. They need to find the political will to do much better, especially the G7 countries. It is hoped that the forthcoming G8 Summit in Japan can make an important contribution to remedy this unacceptable situation.
Annex tables and graphs provide detailed information on individual countries as well as enable the comparisons across them. They are prepared using the free GAPTIMER monitoring tool for calculation and graphing of S-time-distance deviations from the line to target. S-time-distance methodology allows numerous stakeholders to benefit from this novel statistical measure for policy debate for many issues and at various levels.
It provides the official organisations as well as the media and NGOs with an additional analytical and presentation tool for continuous monitoring of the implementation of the established targets at world, regional, national, sub-national and business levels.
Text: G7 lags the UN 2015 target by 5 years.pdf
Annex tables: Annex tables with 2010.pdf
Annex graphs by countries: Annex Graphs ODA_GNI.pdf
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Europe’s Position from the Time Distance Perspective |
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Thursday, 12 June 2008 |
Pavle Sicherl presented Europe’s Position from the Time Distance Perspective at the European Regional Economic Forum in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, June 5-6, 2008. Three main topics in the presentation were: 1. The position of EU in the world, 2. Tracking the timetable of implementation of Lisbon and NRP targets, 3. Methodological by-product: S-time-distance for benchmarking and monitoring at EU, national and sub-national levels that is easily understood by policy makers, media and the general public.
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