CESifo WORLD ECONOMIC SURVEY - RIS



CESifo WORLD ECONOMIC SURVEY

WORLD ECONOMIC CLIMATE

ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

INFLATION

INTEREST RATES

CURRENCIES

World Economic Climate brightens

Both assessments of the current economic

situation and economic expectations

somewhat improved

Expectations for 2007 revised downwards

Trend of rising interest rates is slowing

Western European currencies – euro and

UK pound – seen as overvalued

FEBRUARY VOLUME 6, NO. 1 2007

CESifo, a joint initiative of the University of Munich’s Center for Economic Studies and the Ifo Institute for Economic Research

cesifo.de/wes

h the support of

SPECIAL TOPIC

Statistical information in public and

political decision making

ICC Special Question: Statistical information in public and political decision making

The credibility of statistical information is becoming increasingly important for businesses and for public and political decision-making. In January an international survey on the question of whether the public and political debate across countries is, in general, based on well established statistical evidence, was launched by the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce and the Ifo Institute. The question was originally initiated by the OECD1 (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development), which is launching a long-term project on the creation of a reliable and coherent body of key indicators to measure progress of societies. The project is aimed at addressing the fact that the lack of reliable information leads to the dissemination of ideology instead of knowledge, making people misperceive actions of the governments and undermining a democratic decision process.

More than 700 economists from over 80 countries have responded to the special question. On a global range there seems to be a strong discrepancy across different political debate issues.While main economic indicators, such as GDP, inflation and public finance statistics (governmental debt) are usually well established, the political debates on environmental aspects, knowledge economy (research and education), as well as social conditions tend not to be well grounded on statistical evidence around the world (see Figure 13). However, there are strong differences across regions (see Figure

14). Particularly in Latin America (as in Venezuela, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico and cuador)

and Africa, but also in some Asian (Indonesia, Pakistan and Malaysia) and Eastern uropean countries (Serbia and Montenegro, Albania, Poland) the majority of surveyed economists do not think that the political debate in their country is, in general, based on well-established statistical information. On the other hand, in Australia and New Zealand, Western Europe and North America WES experts generally think that suffi-

cient statistical evidence provides the base to their country’s political debate.

1 More information is available on the

OECD World Forum website:



23 WES 1/2007

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The availability of official statistics that present a simplified but reliable view of a country’s progress is the starting point for a democratic and informed decision process. Citizens need reliable, comprehensive, and at the same time simple information on which they can base their political decisions. Thus, the survey asked economic experts worldwide about the availability and quality of the official report or website based on statistical indicators that provide the public with a comprehensive view of their country’s

progress. Economic experts are assumed to be one of the best informed population groups and thus the most suitable target group for a survey like this. Particularly good marks for the official report that would provide a comprehensive view on key indicators have been given by the surveyed economists in Northern European countries – Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands and United Kingdom – but also in Austria and France (see Table 4). Also in some Central and Eastern European countries WES experts judged the statistical information provided by an official body to be good, as in Slovenia, Slovakia and Latvia and also in Lithuania and Croatia, but here the official website, however, received quite low ranks.

Table 4

Quality of Official Report or Website that Based on Statistical Indicators Provides a Comprehensive View on the Country’s Progress

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Only countries with more than 3 responses have been included into the analysis

WES scale: 4 – very good, 3 - good, 2 – rather poor, 1 – very poor/absent

Source: Ifo World Economic Survey I/2007

In the United States, Australia and New Zealand the experts also expressed confidence in the official statistical information. In Asia, in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea and in Latin America, in Brazil, Colombia and Chile the panel assessed the official statistical information as satisfactory. The Internet has become the

communication medium of choice in academia, business and homes, as it is a less expensive way to reach more people. Although there seem to be no major differences in the quality of the printed and the electronic version of the official report, on global average, the printed version received better masks. However, there were some countries where the experts generally judged the Internet version of the report to be better than the printed version.This was particularly the case in Central and Eastern

European countries: Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, but also in Mexico and Thailand (see Table 4).

Severe deficits relating to the availability of an officialreport or website providing reliable information on a country’s progress were reported by the surveyed economists in several Latin American countries, particularly Venezuela, Costa Rica and Paraguay. Also in Mexico the economists criticized the official report. On the other hand,the official

website was judged as “good”. Similar experience was reported for Russia. In Asia, the Chinese and Indonesian official statistical reports met with critism. A country where reliable statistical information has been absolutely missing for almost a decade is not surprisingly Zimbabwe.

In general, in the majority of countries the official report providing information on a country’s progress was judged to be not entirely satisfactory. In sum, the results of the survey have accentuated the need for comprehensive statistical information that can measure the overall progress of a country and create reliable, common knowledge in order to better inform the public debate, particularly on non-economic issues, such as environmental aspects, social conditions,security and education. According to OECD recommendations, a database with key indicators should meet three fundamental criteria: (1) present a simplified but reliable view of the country, (2) contribute to a shared knowledge among citizens and (3) make politicians accountable for their actions. While major progress on these issues has already been achieved in several countries, in the majority of countries severe deficits still seem to prevail.

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