The Rise and Rise of Indicators

Their History and Geography

Stephen Morse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351850834
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

This book makes indicators more accessible, in terms of what they are, who created them and how they are used. It examines the subjectivity and human frailty behind these quintessentially 'hard' and technical measures of the world.

To achieve this goal, The Rise and Rise of Indicators presents the world in terms of a selected set of indicators. The emphasis is upon the origins of the indicators and the motivation behind their creation and evolution. The ideas and assumptions behind the indicators are made transparent to demonstrate how changes to them can dramatically alter the ranking of countries that emerge. They are, after all, human constructs and thus embody human biases. The book concludes by examining the future of indicators and the author sets out some possible trajectories, including the growing emphasis on indicators as important tools in the Sustainable Development Goals that have been set for the world up until 2030.

This is a valuable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the areas of economics, sociology, geography, environmental studies, development studies, area studies, business studies, politics and international relations.

1

The world in numbers

Indicators are all around

“Love is all around” sang the Troggs in their hit of the late 1960s (followed by the perhaps better-known Wet Wet Wet version in 1994, which was the theme song for the highly popular movie Four Weddings and a Funeral), but the same is also true of indicators, even if they do not make, sadly, for such a catchy song title or for mega-sales of hit singles. Indicators are all around. It might surprise you to know that you – and indeed everyone else – use them every day of your life, although I am pretty confident that you don’t say to yourself “ahh … another indicator – my tenth of the day”. So just what are these ubiquitous ‘things’ that are all around us like love? Well, at its most fundamental level, an indicator is nothing more than a clue – a signal that something is happening, or perhaps a suggestion that something will happen. Therefore, as I look out of my window, I can unfortunately see the sky getting darker with clouds and this is an indicator to me that it may soon start to rain. The fact that it is cold, despite being our so-called spring here in the UK, is indicated by the proportion of people I can see wearing coats outside. The proportion is not 100% , as some hardy souls are even wearing t-shirts and shorts, but the majority view over appropriate clothing gives me a clue that I will need to wear a coat when I go out later. I could go on with these little vignettes, and a give a few others in the Foreword to this book, but I am sure by now you get the idea. Thus, while we do not instantly log all these observations in our minds as a sort of formal ‘cause–effect’, in the sense that dark clouds may mean rain, we do so almost unconsciously. But it doesn’t stop there and, beyond an avoidance of getting wet or cold, these visual indicators can be important for our well-being and safety. Think about the clues you look for when going to a city for the first time and have a strong desire to avoid being in a dangerous area of a city where you may be vulnerable to robbery. What clues (indicators) do you look for to avoid such a fate? You could opt for an expensive hotel with four or five stars on the reasonable premise that these are unlikely to be in ‘bad’ areas. The number of stars is intended to be a visual and easily understood indicator of the quality of the hotel, with a typical range in many countries from one star (lowest quality) to five stars (highest quality). The specific criteria used to assign the number of stars may vary between countries, but the basic idea remains – more stars are better. Others may look more widely than just the quality of the hotel and consult sources available via the internet on crime statistics or perhaps just look to see what newspapers and ‘blogs’ say regarding violent crime and robbery. Other visual clues while physically in the area could be the extent of threatening graffiti on walls, such as gang signs or, at an extreme, the presence of real ‘put-offs’ such as burnt-out cars in streets, boarded-up shops and the remnants of barricades! These are hardly reassuring signals for those of a nervous disposition and I for one would not feel comfortable. These signs are not infallible, of course, and we need to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that indicators of poverty are the same as those for crime, as they are not. Just because an area might have burnt-out cars and boarded-up shops and houses, it does not mean that all who live there are robbers and bad people! Quite the opposite could be the case.

The above can be regarded almost as a lay view of what an indicator is: A technical sounding term for what can, to be frank, almost be seen as common sense. There is no magic here – indicators are things we look for all of the time to help us make sense of the world, even if they may be for the most part visual clues. Indeed, perhaps clue or signal may be a better way of putting it rather than indicator, and we process so many of them in a single day that we do not even think about it – we just do it. Indeed, they are not only as ubiquitous as love but, and here I will be provocative, they are probably more vital for our day-to-day well-being. This is not me being unromantic but realistic. Benjamin Franklin said, in a letter to the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy, in 1789 following the drafting of the American constitution in 1787:

Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.

(Full text of the letter is available at the Benjamin Franklin paper repository: franklinpapers.org)

This is a translation from the original French – Franklin was fluent in that language – but the last few words are often quoted in the English-speaking world even if the letter may not necessarily be the first use of the phrase. The first part of the letter has, I would argue, a point of almost equal relevance for indicators. It must be remembered that the letter was written by Franklin to Leroy at the time of the French Revolution:

Are you still living? Or has the mob of Paris mistaken the head of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopolizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets upon a pole.

(Ibid.)

Just what the indicators are that the mob would look for in making such a distinction between monopolising heads of knowledge and corn, one can only wonder? Herein rests a lesson that will be returned to throughout this book – relationships between indicators and reality can be imagined.

I will go further than Franklin and say that indicators should be added to this ‘death and taxes’ duopoly although, as with my suggestion for modifying the title of the Troggs’ song, it would not roll off the tongue so well.

[I]n this world, nothing is...