What Can We Learn about Country Performance from Conditional Comparisons across Countries?

Ravallion, Martin

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADJUSTED INCOME;    AVERAGE INCOME;    AVERAGE INCOMES;    AVERAGE LEVEL;    BAD GROWTH;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2342
RP-ID  :  WPS2342

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

There have been many attempts to inferlatent performance attributes of governments (or otherinstitutions) from conditional comparisons that control forobserved variables. Success in doing do could greatlyimprove government performance. The author criticallyreviews the econometric foundations of the methods used. Heargues that latent heterogeneity remains a fundamental, butunresolved problem. Locating a benchmark for measuringperformance, adds a further problem. Current methods do notyield a consistent estimate of even the mean latentperformance attribute. An assessment of country performanceby these methods could well be wildly wrong.