IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

What can we learn about country performance from conditional comparisons across countries?

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Ravallion, Martin

Abstract

There have been many attempts to infer latent performance attributes of governments (or other institutions) from conditional comparisons that control for observed variables. Success in doing do could greatly improve government performance. The author critically reviews the econometric foundations of the methods used. He argues that latent heterogeneity remains a fundamental, but unresolved problem. Locating a benchmark for measuring performance, adds a further problem. Current methods do not yield a consistent estimate of even the mean latent performance attribute. An assessment of country performance by these methods could well be wildly wrong.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/06/09/000094946_00053105505764/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 2342.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: 31 May 2000
Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2342
Contact details of provider: Postal:
1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433

Phone: (202) 477-1234
Web page: http://www.worldbank.org/
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Environmental Economics&Policies; Services&Transfers to Poor; Public Health Promotion; Health Economics&Finance; Health Monitoring&Evaluation; Health Economics&Finance; Rural Poverty Reduction; Services&Transfers to Poor; Achieving Shared Growth; Safety Nets and Transfers;

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Sen, Amartya, 1981. "Public Action and the Quality of Life in Developing Countries," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 43(4), pages 287-319, November.
  2. Kakwani, N., 1993. "Performance in living standards : An international comparison," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 307-336, August.
  3. Sudhir Anand & Martin Ravallion, 1993. "Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 133-150, Winter.
  4. Gouyette, Claudine & Pestieau, Pierre, 1999. "Efficiency of the Welfare State," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 537-553.
  5. Bidani, Benu & Ravallion, Martin, 1997. "Decomposing social indicators using distributional data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 125-139, March.
  6. Patrick Vanhoudt, 1997. "Do Labor Market Policies and Growth Fundamentals Matter for Income Inequality in OECD Countries?: Some Empirical Evidence," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(3), pages 356-373, September.
  7. Aturupane, Harsha & Glewwe, Paul & Isenman, Paul, 1994. "Poverty, Human Development, and Growth: An Emerging Consensus?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 244-249, May.
  8. Ranis, Gustav & Stewart, Frances & Ramirez, Alejandro, 2000. "Economic Growth and Human Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 197-219, February.
  9. Tracy, Joseph & Waldfogel, Joel, 1997. "The Best Business Schools: A Market-Based Approach," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(1), pages 1-31, January.
  10. James Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Jeffrey Smith & Petra Todd, 1998. "Characterizing Selection Bias Using Experimental Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(5), pages 1017-1098, September.
  11. Ravallion, Martin, 1997. "Good and bad growth: The human development reports," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 631-638, May.
  12. Bhalla, Surjit S & Glewwe, Paul, 1986. "Growth and Equity in Developing Countries: A Reinterpretation of the Sri Lankan Experience," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 1(1), pages 35-63, September.
  13. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Christiaensen, Luc & Scott, Christopher & Wodon, Quentin, 2002. "Cibles du développement et coûts
    [Development targets and costs]    ," MPRA Paper 10494, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  2. Christiaensen, Luc & Scott, Christopher & Wodon, Quentin, 2002. "Development Targets and Costs," MPRA Paper 12299, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Christiaensen, Luc & Scott, Christopher & Wodon, Quentin, 2002. "Задачи Развития И Затраты
    [Development targets and costs]    ," MPRA Paper 10495, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Christiaensen, Luc & Scott, Christopher & Wodon, Quentin, 2002. "Metas y costos del desarrollo
    [Development Targets and Costs]    ," MPRA Paper 10493, University Library of Munich, Germany.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2342. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Roula I. Yazigi)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.