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Measuring Livelihoods and Environmental Dependence: Methods for Research and Fieldwork
by Arild Angelsen Helle Overgaard Larsen Jens Friis Lund Carsten Smith-Hall Sven WunderThousands of surveys on rural livelihoods in developing countries are being done every year. Unfortunately, many suffer from weaknesses in methods and problems in implementation. Quantifying households' dependence on multiple environmental resources (forests, bush, grasslands and rivers) is particularly difficult and often simply ignored in the surveys. The results therefore do not reflect rural realities. In particular, 'the hidden harvest' from natural resources is generally too important to livelihoods for development research, policies and practice to ignore. Fieldwork using state-of-the-art methods, and in particular well-designed household questionnaires, thus becomes an imperative to adequately capture key dimensions of rural welfare. This book describes how to do a better job when designing and implementing household and village surveys for quantitative assessment of rural livelihoods in developing countries. It covers the entire research process from planning to sharing research results. It draws on the experiences from a large global-comparative project, the Poverty Environment Network (PEN), to develop more robust and validated methods, enriched by numerous practical examples from the field. The book will provide an invaluable guide to methods and a practical handbook for students and professionals.
Measuring Marketing
by John A. DavisEvaluating marketing performance and decision making more fairly Marketing has long been considered an art and not a science, but that perception is beginning to change as increasingly sophisticated methods of quantifying marketing success are developed. In Measuring Marketing: 103 Key Metrics Every Marketer Needs, Second Edition, one of the world's leading experts in the field presents the key marketing ratios and metrics. Applying these metrics will enable marketers to make better decisions and increase their accountability for their strategies and activities. This fully revised and updated new edition discusses the key marketing metrics needed for successfully measuring the performance of an organization's marketing investments. CEOs and CFOs regularly ask for one simple way to assess the efficacy of marketing campaigns, but the fact is that there isn't one single measure of performance. Measuring Marketing helps marketers figure out what they can and should be measuring and when. Marketers are increasingly being held accountable for the corporate bottom line, and this book helps both marketers, as well as the business leaders who employ them, to measure performance fairly and accurately Measuring marketing success is difficult, but this book shows what and when to assess Designed to increase accountability and improve everyday decisions, the book includes ratios illustrated with actual marketing cases from leading companies The first book to address growing demands that marketers be accountable for their strategies and decisions, Measuring Marketing explains how to assess marketing success in more meaningful ways.
Measuring Multidimensional Poverty and Deprivation
by Roger WhiteThis edited collection provides a comprehensive examination of multidimensional poverty for a wide variety of economies and societies, with a general focus on multidimensional poverty in developed countries, where poverty is often overlooked. Arguing that income- and consumption-based poverty measures cannot provide a full picture of the presence and extent of poverty, the contributors suggest new ways to structure assessment indexes. Complementing the discussion of new rubrics, a series of single-country and comparative examples from Europe and the United States examine variation in multidimensional poverty incidence and the extent of deprivation. This combination of methodology and application will appeal to academics, researchers, and policymakers alike.
Measuring Mutual Fund Performance
by Andre F. Perold Markus F. MullarkeyExamines various approaches to measuring mutual fund performance. The approaches include the use of risk exposure and the Sharpe Ratio, as well as the Morningstar star system for rating mutual funds. Applies the approaches to a variety of mutual funds to demonstrate the effect of using different metrics to measure fund performance.
Measuring National Income in the Centrally Planned Economies: Why the West Underestimated the Transition to Capitalism (Routledge Studies in the Modern World Economy)
by William JefferiesIn 1991 "Communism" collapsed. The cold war was over and the West had won. Whole cities, Moscow, St Petersburg, Warsaw, Beijing, Budapest and Bucharest, whole countries indeed, were privatised for nothing or next to nothing. This was probably the greatest expansion of the world market in history. And yet, according to national income measurements of the CIA, OECD, World Bank and IMF, this gigantic expansion of market production, led to a decline in market production in the very countries where it was introduced. How to explain this paradox? This book traces the origin of the West’s national income measurements, from their origin in the 1923/4 Balance developed in the USSR, to the USA in the early 1930s via two Soviet exiles, Simon Kuznets and Wassily Leontief, and then back to the USSR again, after a vigorous debate, through a protégé of Kuznets, Abram Bergson. The AFC imputed national incomes to a centrally planned economy, based on physical not income measurements. This book provides a detailed assessment of the failure of the AFC method to measure the real growth of actual market production during the transition period. This book provides a detailed account of the application of national income measurements to the centrally planned economies. It assesses all of the major contributors to this debate, including Colin Clark, Naum Jasny, Alexander Gerschenkron, G.Warren Nutter and Abram Bergson. It provides a new much higher, estimate of the expansion of market production during the transition period, based on an estimate of the actual growth of real market production. It discusses the very significant implications of this re-estimate for contemporary theories of globalisation.
Measuring National Innovation Performance
by Frane AdamThis book provides a critical re-examination of the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS) as the main tool used by the European Commission and other policy-making bodies to measure national innovation capacity. Given that contemporary societies and economies are to a great extent characterised by the processes of production, dissemination and application (re-combination) of knowledge, the accurate monitoring and measurement of R&D efficiency and innovation performance on national, regional and firm level are of outmost importance. The contextual reconstruction of the model of indicators used by IUS reveals that the accuracy and validity of measurement are not satisfactory, and that substantial modifications of metrics are needed to achieve stronger theoretical significance and policy-relevance. In this work, the »epistemic turn« is emphasised and offered as an alternative, namely in the sense of the shift from a mechanicist-positivist orientation toward a more reflective and contextual post-positivist approach.
Measuring Outcome In The Public Sector
by Peter SmithFirst Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Measuring Performance
by Harvard Business School PressOrganizations want--and need--to track the changes in their overall performance. And the divisions, units, teams, and individuals within these organizations engage in similar success measurement. Performance Measurement explains the importance of regularly monitoring your group's performance and introduces formal measurement practices. You'll learn to Apply a disciplined process to performance measurement Set targets and communicate data effectively Use performance management as a coaching and development tool Meet Your Mentor Robert S. Kaplan is Baker Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School and Chairman of the Practice Leadership Committee of Palladium, Executing Strategy. He has authored or coauthored 14 books, 18 Harvard Business Review articles, and more than 120 other papers.The Pocket Mentor series offers immediate solutions to the challenges managers face on the job every day. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness.
Measuring Performance: A Toolkit of Traditional and Alternative Methods
by David JenkinsDo your performance measures seek primarily to detect and control undesirable activities, rather than sharing and rewarding productive behaviour? Every organisation needs to measure its performance and that of the people it employs; David Jenkins shows you how to make more productive use of such measures. For measures to be accurate and reliable there are fundamental rules that need to be applied. Ignoring or misapplying them undermines performance and impedes the achievement of the corporate goal. For any enterprise, data must be available across the whole spectrum of activity in which it is engaged. The quality of that information will depend on the way it is measured. In some commercial organisations data is regularly gathered at local level. Instead of being used at this point, it is often fed into a corporate information system which, having recycled it, issues the result in a form that does not always meet needs. In Measuring Performance, David Jenkins examines the more traditional measures of performance and highlights their shortcomings as well as assessing the merits of the alternative approaches that are currently available. The book concludes with a step-by-step guide to reviewing the effectiveness of your organisation's existing systems for measuring performance and identifying ways of improving them.
Measuring Police Integrity Across the World
by M. R. Haberfeld Sanja Kutnjak IvkovićThis book brings together research on police integrity on regions worldwide. The results for each country indicate whether police officers know the official rules, how seriously they view police misconduct, what they think the appropriate and expected discipline for misconduct should be, and how willing they are to report it. Police misconduct refers to everything from corruption and use excessive force, to perjury, falsification of evidence, and failure to react. Police Integrity and police misconduct are topics of great concern worldwide. Police integrity is envisioned as the inclination to resist temptations to abuse the rights and privileges of police occupation. Using their extensive experience studying police integrity in the United States, the editors have created an applicable framework for measuring police integrity in other countries. The results of their research are brought together in this timely volume, including contributions from both established democracies and countries in transition, which each present unique challenges for improving police integrity. Each chapter follows the same format and contains a theoretical analysis of the relevant legal, historical, political, social, and economic conditions in the country, followed by the analyses of empirical results and policy recommendations. In the last chapter, editors Kutnjak Ivković and Haberfeld take a comparative look across the countries by engaging in the in-depth comparative analysis. This work will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers studying policing both in the United States and internationally, presenting a theoretical framework that can be applied to other regions for further research.
Measuring Poverty around the World
by Anthony B. AtkinsonThe final book from a towering pioneer in the study of poverty and inequality—a critically important examination of poverty around the worldIn this, his final book, economist Anthony Atkinson, one of the world’s great social scientists and a pioneer in the study of poverty and inequality, offers an inspiring analysis of a central question: What is poverty and how much of it is there around the globe? The persistence of poverty—in rich and poor countries alike—is one of the most serious problems facing humanity. Better measurement of poverty is essential for raising awareness, motivating action, designing good policy, gauging progress, and holding political leaders accountable for meeting targets. To help make this possible, Atkinson provides a critically important examination of how poverty is—and should be—measured.Bringing together evidence about the nature and extent of poverty across the world and including case studies of sixty countries, Atkinson addresses both financial poverty and other indicators of deprivation. He starts from first principles about the meaning of poverty, translates these into concrete measures, and analyzes the data to which the measures can be applied. Crucially, he integrates international organizations’ measurements of poverty with countries’ own national analyses.Atkinson died before he was able to complete the book, but at his request it was edited for publication by two of his colleagues, John Micklewright and Andrea Brandolini. In addition, François Bourguignon and Nicholas Stern provide afterwords that address key issues from the unfinished chapters: how poverty relates to growth, inequality, and climate change.The result is an essential contribution to efforts to alleviate poverty around the world.
Measuring Poverty: A New Approach
by Constance F. Citro Robert T. MichaelEach year's poverty figures are anxiously awaited by policymakers, analysts, and the media. Yet questions are increasing about the 30-year-old measure as social and economic conditions change. In Measuring Poverty a distinguished panel provides policymakers with an up-to-date evaluation of Concepts and procedures for deriving the poverty threshold, including adjustments for different family circumstances. Definitions of family resources. Procedures for annual updates of poverty measures. The volume explores specific issues underlying the poverty measure, analyzes the likely effects of any changes on poverty rates, and discusses the impact on eligibility for public benefits. In supporting its recommendations the panel provides insightful recognition of the political and social dimensions of this key economic indicator. Measuring Poverty will be important to government officials, policy analysts, statisticians, economists, researchers, and others involved in virtually all poverty and social welfare issues.
Measuring Productivity in Education and Not-for-Profits: With Tools and Examples in R (Management for Professionals)
by Kenneth MooreThis book takes the reader through real-world examples for how to characterize and measure the productivity and performance of NFPs and education institutions—that is, organisations that produce value for society, which cannot be measured accurately in financial KPIs. It focuses on how best to frame non-profit performance and productivity, and provides a suite of tools for measurement and benchmarking. It further challenges the reader to consider alternative and appropriate uses of quantitative measures, which are fit-for-purpose in individual contexts.It is true that the risk of misusing quantitative measures is ever-present. But does that risk outweigh the benefits of forming a more precise and shared understanding of what could generate better outcomes? There will always be concerns about policy and performance management. Goodheart’s Law states that once a measure becomes a target, it is no longer a good measure. This book helps to strike a meaningful balance between what can be measured, what cannot, and how best to use quantitative information in sectors that are often averse to being held up to the light and put on a scale by outsiders.
Measuring Productivity of Labour-Intensive Work Practices in Road Construction in Africa (Routledge Research Collections for Construction in Developing Countries)
by Clinton Aigbavboa Wellington Didibhuku Thwala Emmanuel Bamfo-AgyeiThis book examines an issue of constant concern in the construction industry, that of productivity. Using data from Ghana and South Africa, it presents research into the productivity of local contractors in these countries whilst examining the predominance of labour-intensive production methods. The book begins by considering the theoretical and conceptual perspectives on labour productivity in the construction industry in the existing literature, before reviewing current productivity measurement frameworks. The book then explores the productivity of labour-intensive public works projects in South Africa and Ghana alongside a general discussion of key factors affecting construction productivity in these countries. Whilst the focus is on road construction, the framework developed can be applied to any number of construction projects to measure, and ultimately improve productivity. This book is useful reading for researchers and practitioners looking to understand the factors influencing labour productivity in construction at both the industry and the project level, including construction managers, quantity surveyors, cost engineers and project managers.
Measuring Regional Specialisation
by Katarzyna Kopczewska Paweł Churski Artur Ochojski Adam PolkoThis book explores statistical models in regional specialization, presenting a brand new measure. It begins by reviewing existing indicators and models of regional specialization before outlining a newly created, spatially embedded model of specialization based on the spatial distribution of firms. It addresses the various applications of the model, and how the model can be used in regional policy.
Measuring Research and Development Expenditures IN THE U.S. ECONOMY
by Panel On Research Development Statistics at the National Science FoundationThis report examines the portfolio of research and development (R&D) expenditure surveys at the National Science Foundation (NSF), identifying gaps and weaknesses and areas of missing coverage. The report takes an in-depth look at the definition of R&D, the needs and potential uses of NSF’s R&D data by a variety of users, the goals of an integrated system of surveys and other data collection activities, and the quality of the data collected in the existing Science Resources Statistics surveys.
Measuring Service Performance: Practical Research for Better Quality
by Ralf LischIn service societies, the tertiary sector has long become the primary sector in terms of GDP and employment. Quality research and testing means better service, and success in the service industries demands quality. Nonetheless, complaints about insufficient, inconsistent or bad service abound. Quality decides on success and failure. Where so much is at stake, management decisions call for systematic research and consumers look for relevant results that provide guidance in complex markets. Research into quality and customer satisfaction gets to the core of a business. However, many so-called studies hardly meet essential criteria of empirical research and deliver artefacts rather than facts. This book puts an end to common misconceptions of quality studies. Measuring Service Performance is an appeal for an approach to quality research that meets quality criteria itself. It is a compelling argument against widespread but rather dubious dealings with measurement, data and statistics. Ralf Lisch calls for a reconsideration of the research process, focussing on content instead of method and adding meaning to results. Because service excellence deserves research excellence. Written in a practical, accessible style, the book offers practitioners as well as market researchers, MBA students and others involved in the service sector a critical analysis and discussion of the essentials of 'Practical Research for Better Quality'.
Measuring Social Change: Performance and Accountability in a Complex World
by Alnoor EbrahimThe social sector is undergoing a major transformation. We are witnessing an explosion in efforts to deliver social change, a burgeoning impact investing industry, and an unprecedented intergenerational transfer of wealth. Yet we live in a world of rapidly rising inequality, where social sector services are unable to keep up with societal need, and governments are stretched beyond their means. Alnoor Ebrahim addresses one of the fundamental dilemmas facing leaders as they navigate this uncertain terrain: performance measurement. How can they track performance towards worthy goals such as reducing poverty, improving public health, or advancing human rights? What results can they reasonably measure and legitimately take credit for? This book tackles three core challenges of performance faced by social enterprises and nonprofit organizations alike: what to measure, what kinds of performance systems to build, and how to align multiple demands for accountability. It lays out four different types of strategies for managers to consider—niche, integrated, emergent, and ecosystem—and details the types of performance measurement and accountability systems best suited to each. Finally, this book examines the roles of funders such as impact investors, philanthropic foundations, and international aid agencies, laying out how they can best enable meaningful performance measurement.
Measuring Sustainability and CSR: From Reporting to Decision-Making (Ethical Economy #64)
by Kristian J. Sund Johannes Kabderian Dreyer Slobodan KacanskiThis book discusses reliability and other related issues, such as reporting and decision-making, pertinent to sustainability and corporate responsibility reporting practices. Investors, governments, and NGOs expect businesses to report their environmental and social performance. This information is used to legislate, regulate industries, and guide the investment of billions of dollars through pensions and mutual funds. But can we trust these measurements? In order to answer this question, the editors and contributors, all academic thought leaders from a variety of fields, offer a set of reflections on problems that various stakeholders might be exposed to. These problems are mainly due to a lack of standardized reporting practices and guidelines, and inconsistencies in measurements used for the valuation of corporate sustainability performance indicators. This book is of great interest to students, scholars, and stakeholders to help comprehend the importance of accounting on sustainability practices for decision-making and measures therein, but also the reliability risks involved in these measurements. Thus, it moves away from simply pushing for more sustainability reporting towards a more critical discussion of measurement issues and potential consequences of the aforementioned problems to different fields such as finance, marketing, or strategy.
Measuring Sustainability: Learning From Doing
by Stephen Morse Simon Bell' Measuring the sustainability of development is crucial to achieving it, and is one of the most actively studied issues in the area. To date, most studies of measurements or indicators have been largely theoretical. However, this book, a follow-on to Bell and Morse's highly influential Sustainability Indicators (1999), presents valuable practical advice on how to develop measurements that will work in real-life development contexts. It describes and analyses how to derive, validate and apply indicators in the course of an actual development project - in this case the Mediterranean Action Plan in Malta. The authors explain the trade-offs and constraints involved and how it is possible to combine the open-ended and flexible perspectives of sustainability with the more linear processes and fixed targets of specific projects through the use of pragmatic and reflective methodologies.
Measuring Systemic Risk: A Probabilistic Perspective (Studies in Systems, Decision and Control #409)
by Deyan RadevThis book provides a comprehensive methodology to measure systemic risk in many of its facets and dimensions based on state-of-the-art risk assessment methods. Systemic risk has gained attention in the public eye since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The bankruptcy of the fourth-biggest bank in the USA raised questions whether banks that are allowed to become “too big to fail” and “too systemic to fail” should carry higher capital surcharges on their size and systemic importance. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 was followed by the Sovereign Debt Crisis in the euro area that saw the first Eurozone government de facto defaulting on its debt and prompted actions at international level to stem further domino and cascade effects to other Eurozone governments and banks. Against this backdrop, a careful measurement of systemic risk is of utmost importance for the new capital regulation to be successful and for sovereign risk to remain in check. Most importantly, the book introduces a number of systemic fragility indicators for banks and sovereigns that can help to assess systemic risk and the impact of macroprudential and microprudential policies.
Measuring Tomorrow: Accounting for Well-Being, Resilience, and Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century
by Éloi LaurentHow moving beyond GDP will improve well-being and sustainabilityNever before in human history have we produced so much data, and this empirical revolution has shaped economic research and policy profoundly. But are we measuring, and thus managing, the right things—those that will help us solve the real social, economic, political, and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century? In Measuring Tomorrow, Éloi Laurent argues that we need to move away from narrowly useful metrics such as gross domestic product and instead use broader ones that aim at well-being, resilience, and sustainability. By doing so, countries will be able to shift their focus away from infinite and unrealistic growth and toward social justice and quality of life for their citizens.The time has come for these broader metrics to become more than just descriptive, Laurent argues; applied carefully by private and public decision makers, they can foster genuine progress. He begins by taking stock of the booming field of well-being and sustainability indicators, and explains the insights that the best of these can offer. He then shows how these indicators can be used to develop new policies, from the local to the global.An essential resource for scholars, students, and policymakers, Measuring Tomorrow covers all aspects of well-being—including health, education, and the environment—and incorporates a broad range of data and fascinating case studies from around the world: not just the United States and Europe but also China, Africa, the Middle East, and India.
Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy: Studies in Income and Wealth (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report #73)
by Charles R. Hulten and Marshall B. ReinsdorfMore than half a decade has passed since the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In retrospect, what is surprising is that these events and their consequences came as such a surprise. What was it that prevented most of the world from recognizing the impending crisis and, looking ahead, what needs to be done to prevent something similar? Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy identifies measurement problems associated with the financial crisis and improvements in measurement that may prevent future crises, taking account of the dynamism of the financial marketplace in which measures that once worked well become misleading. In addition to advances in measuring financial activity, the contributors also investigate the effects of the crisis on households and nonfinancial businesses. They show that households’ experiences varied greatly and some even experienced gains in wealth, while nonfinancial businesses’ lack of access to credit in the recession may have been a more important factor than the effects of policies stimulating demand.
Measuring Welfare beyond Economics: The genuine progress of Hong Kong and Singapore (Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development)
by Claudio O. Delang Yi Hang YuDissatisfaction with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an indicator of a country’s development or a population’s wellbeing led to the development of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). The GPI is an aggregate index of over 20 economic, social and environmental indicators, and accounts for both the welfare benefits of economic growth, and the social and environmental costs which accompany that economic growth. The result is better information about the level of welfare or well-being of a country’s population. This book measures the GPI of Hong Kong and Singapore from 1968 to 2010. It finds that for both countries, economic output (as measured by the GDP) has grown more than welfare (as measured by the GPI), but important differences are also found. In Hong Kong, the GPI has grown for the whole period under consideration, while in Singapore the GPI has stalled from 1993. This is in line with most countries and is explained by the "threshold hypothesis" which states that beyond a certain level of economic development the benefits of further economic growth are outweighed by even higher environmental and social costs. The book argues that the growth of Hong Kong’s GPI is due to its favourable relationship with China and in particular its ability to export low-wage jobs and polluting industries, rather than successful domestic policies. A stalling or shrinking GPI calls for alternative policies than the growth economy promoted by neoclassical economists, and the book explores an alternative model, that of the Steady State Economy (SSE).
Measuring What We Spend
by Don A. DillmanThe Consumer Expenditure (CE) surveys are the only source of information on the complete range of consumers' expenditures and incomes in the United States, as well as the characteristics of those consumers. The CE consists of two separate surveys: (1) a national sample of households interviewed five times at three-month intervals; and (2) a separate national sample of households that complete two consecutive one-week expenditure diaries. For more than 40 years, these surveys, the responsibility of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), have been the principal source of knowledge about changing patterns of consumer spending in the U. S. population. In February 2009, BLS initiated the Gemini Project, the aim of which is to redesign the CE surveys to improve data quality through a verifiable reduction in measurement error with a particular focus on underreporting. The Gemini Project initiated a series of information-gathering meetings, conference sessions, forums, and workshops to identify appropriate strategies for improving CE data quality. As part of this effort, BLS requested the National Research Council's Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) to convene an expert panel to build on the Gemini Project by conducting further investigations and proposing redesign options for the CE surveys. The charge to the Panel on Redesigning the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys includes reviewing the output of a Gemini-convened data user needs forum and methods workshop and convening its own household survey producers workshop to obtain further input. In addition, the panel was tasked to commission options from contractors for consideration in recommending possible redesigns. The panel was further asked by BLS to create potential redesigns that would put a greater emphasis on proactive data collection to improve the measurement of consumer expenditures. Measuring What We Spend summarizes the deliberations and activities of the panel, discusses the conclusions about the uses of the CE surveys and why a redesign is needed, as well as recommendations for the future.