MattAndrews

The delusion (or deception) of MDGs and measurement

Last week I was involved in some discussions about post 2015 MDGs. In some meetings I was told that all indicators chosen must be measurable and must actually already be reliably measured. A sensible criteria, one might think.
But also one that is delusional or just plain deceptive. For people who have never visited the statistical offices in many developing countries it might sound plausible that reliable measures exist for things like GDP and infant mortality and access to schooling. And this belief gives a sense of legitimacy to the MDGs we have now.
But people who have visited statistical bureaus in many developing countries will tell you that the measures of these and many other concepts are fraught with problems. And should not be trusted in many cases.
Read Morten Jerven's poor numbers if you want a taste of this reality.
I wonder why we insist on pretending the measures and goals we use in MDGs pass the smell test, when in most cases they don't? Is it delusion or deception at work in the international community?

Culture, signaling and the transparency fad

I'm amazed at how much press the open government partnership is getting, and how many organizations are now working in the 'transparency' space, and how many countries are signing agreements to make their governments and private sectors transparent. Noble. And fantastic in theory. Especially for those who believe sunlight uncovers all ills and such. More transparency, less places to hide, more incentives to be above board, less corruption, greater openness, more engagement and participation, and a better world.
But has anyone tested if this theory holds? How many of the transparency commitments are fruitless signals that promise something they don't deliver?
The accounting literature has done work on this question. Looking at countries that commit to adopt international standards that require lots of disclosure and openness, various authors in this literature have found that implementation varies. And often it varies because a country has norms and values that support secrecy over transparency. My badly drawn diagram sums part of this work, showing that some countries are pro secrecy and conservatism (Latin countries and others) while some are pro transparency and optimism ( the USA UK and Nordics amongst others).
Interestingly we see the pro transparency countries as champions of the transparency agenda and various others forced to sign on. But a signature is just a signal, and if the accounting studies are anything to go by we should expect little more from this transparency agenda in many cases...
Read more (http://media.johnwiley.com.au/product_data/excerpt/22/EHEP0005/EHEP000522-2.pdf and http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228341933_Accounting_disclosure_in_companies_listed_on_the_Egyptian_Stock_Exchange/file/9fcfd50ccf70bd53ef.pdf and http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/09175.pdf)

The cost of post 2015 indicator consultations: Money well spent...or not?

I just googled post 2015 governance indicators to make sure I'm keeping up with all the latest on this topic. Wow. Lots and lots to catch up on. Meetings all over the world involving many many organizations and people, from the UN-this and the UN-that, development org-this and development-org that. Not to mention all the bilateral organizations (they can't miss out) and the independent consultants (who are usually not that independent, given the financing of their flights) and now and again some government officials from developing countries. Oh, I should not forget the Eminent Persons Groups, High Level Officials, and other 'most important people who we should listen to very carefully'.

What does all the meeting and negotiation and engagement and travel and dining and chatting and calling and skyping and videoconferencing and otherwise chinwagging cost?

And why is this cost acceptable?

Reading Morten Jerven's book on statistics in Africa (Poor Numbers) makes me think that BEFORE we spend loads of cash on these kinds of development-community-reinforcing-activities we should actually be financing better statistical processes in the developing world (so that if we do have global or regional or country level or local indicators they actually mean something).

But maybe I'm just in a Monday mood.

Limits getting good reviews: not quite the RedSox, but...

 

My friend Matt Crowley took the book all over New England this year. Here it makes a cameo appearance with a Red Sox cap. Great year it was for the Sox. It was a good year for the book too. Here are some academic review highlights:

Marco Cangiano from the IMF said the following in Public Budgeting and Finance:

"The record of institutional reforms undertaken by countries, developing or not, over the last 40 years is mixed at best. ProfessorAndrews’s insightful and timely book provides a systematic analysis of why many such reforms fail or deliver far less than initial expectations. Those who have been working in this field, either as academic, public official, or practitioners, will recognize much of their own experience and perhaps frustrations. By building on the work of many authors, multilateral institutions, and national governments, Andrews himself admits that in this area “very few ideas are new ideas.” But his book provides an analytical and interdisciplinary framework that for the first time brings together these old ideas in a new light while proposing a few new and thought provoking ones. In this respect, a better title would have been Beyond the limits of institutional reforms because this is really what this book is about. Incorporating Matt Andrews’ thinking and extensive hands-on experience in this area from both a practitioner’s as well as an academic’s point of view, the book distills and bridges the vast amount of literature that has emerged over the last two decades in the related—although not always mutually consistent—areas of institutional economics, public administration, and public financial management."