IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/ecriwp/13.html

Some searches may not work properly. We apologize for the inconvenience.

   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring Government Effort to Respect Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Author

Listed:
  • David L. Richards

    (University of Connecticut)

  • K. Chad Clay

    (Binghampton University)

Abstract

There exist a great number of measurement projects intended to benchmark the human condition as it relates to aspirations of human dignity. One thing these efforts have in common is that they are indicators of outcomes, or records of events. Measuring outcomes is methodologically appropriate and substantively useful for a great variety of purposes. Further, some data projects include measures of legal guarantees, as well, to provide some proxy indicator of a state's intentions – often to be matched with the outcomes indicators to show gaps in law and practice as well as to examine limitations in a state's capacity to enforce law. However, the current attention being paid to economic human rights, or development rights, provides a distinct measurement challenge, as prevailing international law tasks states to do the best possible given extant resources. This is part of the framework of "progressive realization" of rights. Thus, outcomes measures of economic rights, typically based on wealth, are unfair to poorer states, by definition. In this paper, we propose a measurement of state effort to respect economic rights given available resources. We feel this substantively matches the progressive realization framework and alleviates the inequity of existing measures that are almost perfectly correlated with national wealth. As a demonstration, we produce effort scores for 100+ countries for the years 1990, 1995, and 2000. We also provide a simple examination of some possible associates of government effort to respect these rights.

Suggested Citation

  • David L. Richards & K. Chad Clay, 2010. "Measuring Government Effort to Respect Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights," Economic Rights Working Papers 13, University of Connecticut, Human Rights Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:uct:ecriwp:13
    Note: Prepared for Presentation at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association. Thanks go to David Cingranelli and Rod Abouharb for their PQLI data, to Lanse Minkler for his valuable comments on an earlier draft, and to Mark Souva for his CIM data. Some of the human rights data used in this paper resulted from a grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. SES-0647969 and SES-0647916). This implies no endorsement by the National Science Foundation of the findings or opinions herein.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/13.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Davenport & David A. Armstrong, 2004. "Democracy and the Violation of Human Rights: A Statistical Analysis from 1976 to 1996," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(3), pages 538-554, July.
    2. Stephen R. G. Jones & W. Craig Riddell, 1999. "The Measurement of Unemployment: An Empirical Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 147-162, January.
    3. Wesley T. Milner, 2000. "Economic Freedom, Globalization and Human Rights : Can We Have It All?," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 15(Spring 20), pages 35-61.
    4. Howard, Rhoda E. & Donnelly, Jack, 1986. "Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Political Regimes," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(3), pages 801-817, September.
    5. Clague, Christopher & Keefer, Philip & Knack, Stephen & Olson, Mancur, 1999. "Contract Intensive Money," MPRA Paper 25717, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Greif, Avner & Milgrom, Paul & Weingast, Barry R, 1994. "Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 745-776, August.
    7. Fred Block, 1980. "Economic Instability and Military Strength: The Paradoxes of the 1950 Rearmament Decision," Politics & Society, , vol. 10(1), pages 35-58, January.
    8. World Bank, 2007. "World Development Indicators 2007," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8150, December.
    9. Poe, Steven C. & Tate, C. Neal, 1994. "Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s: A Global Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(4), pages 853-872, December.
    10. Clague, Christopher & Keefer, Philip & Knack, Stephen & Olson, Mancur, 1999. "Contract-Intensive Money: Contract Enforcement, Property Rights, and Economic Performance," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 185-211, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elizabeth Kaletski & Lanse Minkler & Nishith Prakash & Susan Randolph, 2014. "Does Constitutionalizing Economic and Social Rights Promote their Fulfillment?," Economic Rights Working Papers 23, University of Connecticut, Human Rights Institute.
    2. Sara Kahn‐Nisser, 2022. "Contextualizing Donors’ Interests: The United Nations’ Shaming of the United States’ Trade Partners," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(1), pages 48-61, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John S. Ahlquist & Aseem Prakash, 2008. "The influence of foreign direct investment on contracting confidence in developing countries," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(3), pages 316-339, September.
    2. Duarte N. Leite & Sandra T. Silva & Oscar Afonso, 2014. "Institutions, Economics And The Development Quest," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 491-515, July.
    3. Lorenz Blume & Stefan Voigt, 2007. "The Economic Effects of Human Rights," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 509-538, November.
    4. Hanne Fjelde & Indra De Soysa, 2009. "Coercion, Co-optation, or Cooperation?," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 26(1), pages 5-25, February.
    5. Hartwell, Christopher A., 2014. "The impact of institutional volatility on financial volatility in transition economies : a GARCH family approach," BOFIT Discussion Papers 6/2014, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    6. Knack, Steve & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Unbundling institutions for external finance: Worldwide firm-level evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 215-232.
    7. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2018. "Inefficient Growth," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 9(2).
    8. Casson, Mark C. & Della Giusta, Marina & Kambhampati, Uma S., 2010. "Formal and Informal Institutions and Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 137-141, February.
    9. Philip Keefer & Christopher Kilby, 2021. "Introduction to the special issue: In memoriam Stephen Knack," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 473-493, July.
    10. Oguzhan Dincer & Christopher Ellis, 2005. "Predation, Protection, and Accumulation: Endogenous Property Rights in an Overlapping Generations Growth Model," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(4), pages 435-455, August.
    11. Alexander B. Downes, 2007. "Restraint or Propellant? Democracy and Civilian Fatalities in Interstate Wars," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(6), pages 872-904, December.
    12. Stephen Knack, 2001. "Aid Dependence and the Quality of Governance: Cross‐Country Empirical Tests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(2), pages 310-329, October.
    13. Ceyhun Haydaroglu, 2015. "The Relationship between Property Rights and Economic Growth: an Analysis of OECD and EU Countries," DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, European Association Comenius - EACO, issue 4, pages 217-239, December.
    14. Sebastián Fleitas & Andrés Rius & Carolina Román & Henry Willebald, 2013. "Contract enforcement, investment and growth in Uruguay since 1870," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 13-01, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    15. Coviello, Decio & Islam, Roumeen, 2006. "Does aid help improve economic institutions ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3990, The World Bank.
    16. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2007. "Institutions, Trade, and Social Cohesion in Fragile States," ICER Working Papers 24-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    17. Hartwell, Christopher A. & Malinowska, Anna P., 2019. "Informal institutions and firm valuation," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Christian Davenport, 2012. "When democracies kill: Reflections from the US, India, and Northern Ireland," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 3-20, March.
    19. Sabine C. Carey, 2010. "The Use of Repression as a Response to Domestic Dissent," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 167-186, February.
    20. Owenhouse, John & Atwood, Joseph & Watts, Myles, 2020. "The Effects of Institutional Development Upon Costs of Country Level Borrowing," MSU Staff Papers 307241, Montana State University > Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uct:ecriwp:13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark McConnel (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.humanrights.uconn.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.