Pre-Part draft

Problems

Economic indicators are statistics about the economy that allow analysis of economic performance and the shaping of management and policy making. The noticeable importance of an economic indicator is that it has the power to shape future policies. Thus, we would hope that the economic indicator is as accurate as can be. Quite the contrary, the means as to how and what the indicator develops and measures can theoretically be analyzed as accurate standard guidelines. Depending on what theoretical background is being considered, these guidelines can be helpful or systematically inaccurate.

Economic indicators are created under a set of rules and characteristics. Typical characteristics are: specificity, measurability, usability, sensitivity, availability and cost effectiveness. Specificity means that the economic indicator must clearly relate to outcomes that are being sought. Measurability refers to the numerical aspect of the indicator. In other words, it must be a quantitative value. Usability of the indicator says that it must have and provide help or usage in terms of guiding management and/or policy. Usability must change as circumstances change; it must be sensitive to change. Availability implies that it must be a relatively easy and obvious task to collect the necessary data for the indicator, no matter the type of data. The most confusing characteristic is the cost effective characteristic. This portrays that an economic indicator should not be expensive to obtain.[1]

More in depth, one of the goals of this research was to exploit these simplified characteristics. The act of creating an indicator under these characteristics lies on the governmental need for a standard. Bureaus and other governmental departments often assume an indicator can be applied anywhere around the world where there is a common situation that needs an indicator to produce change and outcome. The governmental institutions produce a standard indicator so they can easily compare and contrast world happenings. This procedure is cheap and makes the information available, specific, measurable, and usable; thus, making it ideal for a governmental indicator analysis department.

An indicator is there to indicate progression and problems. With this in mind, we can notice that indicators tend to leave out a few expensive values. Expensive data tends to fall under the category of specific and time consuming research. Current neoliberal influence on indicators relies on data within the market. The market as far as consumption and commodity is concerned. In other words, the questionable systematic approach to the accuracy of data does not count things like women’s work or peasant economic activity. Basically, the system manipulates information to get it to measure what they need to be measured, if something is worthy of being counted but is too hard and expensive to research then it is left out.

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[1] Morse, Stephen. Indices and indicators in development: an unhealthy obsession with numbers? London; Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2004.

Rough Abstract

Often times when speaking of economics, development and sustainability one must have back-up to the proposed argument. Such back-up I speak of is known as an indicator. What are indicators? How are they determined? These are some of the questions I have within this form of economic, developmental or sustainable measurement. I will touch the topic of using single indicators and multiple indicators to help both the people and the administration better understand the procedure and practices of there situation. We will see if a single indicator is too complex to adequately inform all the decisions that need to be made. And most important who (which economist) uses and how do they use these indicators to adjust political and environmental happenings and goals?

Pre-Bib

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