The Place of Randomized Controlled Trials in Development

Source

A recent article in The Economist was devoted to randomized controlled trials (RCTs):

(I)n 2003, RCTs were regarded as wacky. Critics said that doing a trial was like putting people in a cage and experimenting on them. They pointed out that you cannot conduct randomised trials for big macroeconomic questions (“What happens if we devalue the currency by 50%?”) because there can be no control group. They conceded RCTs might generate useful nuggets of evidence (raising teachers’ wages in India, for example, did surprisingly little to improve learning). But they argued that evidence from such trials would always remain small-scale, tied to a specific context and not be useful beyond it. 

Ten years on, few of those criticisms have stood up to scrutiny. RCTs have entered the mainstream.

The idea of a RCT is to test a treatment by applying it to one group and not to a second group, and seeing which group does better. They are seen as the gold standard in testing new drugs for safety and efficacy. The two groups should be as similar in characteristics as possible, and thus random assignment of members is a key characteristic of RCTs.  In medical trials, the control group may receive a placebo if there is no accepted drug for the condition, or the best alternative if one does exist. Ideally, RCTs when possible are blinded, so that preconceptions of those delivering the treatment, receiving it, or evaluating results do not bias the results.

Of course, RCTs were used in the context of developing nations more than ten years ago. Drug trials for preventive and curative treatments of tropical diseases specific to developing countries go back many, many years. What is new is the extension of the RCT approach to other fields. Thus The Economist lists

• whether boosting teachers’ pay improved educational outcomes
• whether identity cards would improve the delivery of subsidized rice to the poor
• whether job-training encouraged employment growth overall or just boosted the prospects of trainees at the expense of the untrained
• the effect of remedial classes
• what happens if you double the number of teachers
• what are the effects on micro loans on recipients entrepreneurship and well being
• what are the effects of small charges in acceptance of bednets treated to combat malaria or water purification tablets

The characteristic of all these applications of RCT is that a single "thing" is tested to see if it is better than the alternative, which is previous practice. That is all to the good.

The Limitations of RCT

Do we always need to do a full scale RCT to figure the better alternative. I doubt it. When a vaccine or antibiotic has already been proven safe, efficacious, and effective in many countries, it may be applied in a new country on the basis of the existing foreign data (with some careful monitoring).

Moreover, a lot of improvements are made step by step, improving what is being done by small, conservative innovations. Workers improve the use of equipment on the shop floor; Managers improve the allocation of staff to functions or business processes. Buyers and sellers figure ways to improve the function of the market in which they transact their business. Farmers switch from a less to a more profitable crop. Teachers find a better way to help students to learn. It happens all the time! And it is a key to development. RCT doesn't work well for monitoring such incremental change.

And of course RCT doesn't work on all interventions. You can't try an approach to reduce global warming on 50 planets with 50 more as controls. You can't ethically impose sanctions on 50 countries for stockpiling WMDs and not on 50 others committing the same infraction, and wait for wars to break out to see which group kills fewer people. But that does not mean that they are not a useful tool where they work.

Beyond RCT

Fundamentally, development is about systematically doing things better than they were done before.   The fundamental objective of development is to establish a widely effective, indigenous process of rapid improvement in the way things are done.

Many years ago I took a course in community development from Jack Donoghue. He told us of an experience he had in which community leaders had invited him to help their small town community which was not functioning at all well. He spent a few days in the town, talking to people and came to the conclusion that the problem was simply that they were so divided that they would not negotiate constructively among themselves to solve local problems. His solution? He gathered the town leaders together and refused the job, explaining that they were acting like jerks; if they continued to act as they were, he couldn't do any good, and if they changed their behavior and acted more reasonably they didn't need him. The shock treatment worked, and behavior changed. Something similar seems recently to have happened with the House of Representatives; members received a storm of criticism when they shut down the government in October, leading them to agree to an appropriations bill last week. These may be seen as examples of changing the culture to achieve a development goal.

Steve Jobs is credited with turning Apple around when he returned to the company as CEO in the late 1990s. The company stock price increased, attesting to his success. Was what he did suitable for analysis using RCT approaches? I doubt it. I suspect that he changed the culture of the organization so that it began to do many things better, especially the development of new products.

We have been celebrating Nelson Mandela this month. South Africa was a mess in the early 1990s. People were rioting and the Apartheid government was reacting violently -- violence begat violence! The GDP was declining; South Africa was becoming a pariah state. Mandela, representing the ANC, and de Klerk, the President of South Africa, agreed that democratic elections would be held. When they were, majority rule was established in South Africa with Mandela as President, apartheid policies were ended, violence greatly reduced, and growth was restored to the economy. Under the truth and reconciliation policies, racial tensions were reduced. A single event, combined with great leadership, led to a cultural change which greatly enhanced national social and economic development.

More generally, I doubt that we will often find "magic bullets" to change cultures in ways the significantly enhance the rate at which improvements are made in the ways things are done. I suspect development is more like herding cats, putting one thing after another back on track. Thus one might make a country's government a little more capable, a little more responsive to the people. One might then help the farmers to be a little more productive, and the agricultural research and extension service to be a little more efficient and effective. That might be followed by making some improvements in economic policy and strengthening some domestic markets. The process might go on and on until the culture changed and the process of development maintained by the people, their own policies, and their institutions.

RCTs would have a place, but a relatively small place, in such a process of development. One might also evaluate the efficiency and impact of each separate initiative, but especially the sustainability of each effort after the external stimulus was applied. Perhaps more important still would be a big picture evaluation of whether the culture was changing in the right direction, and whether social and economic indicators were suggesting progress.

"Robots" use the Internet more than people do.

Source

A thought for the day

Average life expectancy in the United States is 79. In Japan and Switzerland it is 83. Thus the 300 million or so of us are giving up 1,200,000,000 years of life that we might have, if only we treated ourselves as well as the Swiss and Japanese do.

Happy Holidays

The USAF Band Holiday Flash Mob at the National Air and Space Museum plays "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring/Joy to the World."

Bill Gates on why we should invest in health

It's good for people AND the economy: http://b-gat.es/ISslU1

Religious Diversity and Homogeneity in the USA

An interesting article in the Washington Post describes the geography of religion in the United States. The following map comes from the article:

The blue counties are the least diverse. Thus Utah, with its Mormon majority and counties that are large in area, comes out a big blue spot in the west. The South and the prairie states also show up in cool colors -- blue and green, showing low diversity.

The greatest religious diversity is found in the west, the north-east, Alaska, Hawaii and Florida.

The following map shows the religious group with the largest population per country:

The Southern Baptist Convention shows up red, and red counties cover the south. Blue counties have Catholics as the most numerous, and much of the country shows up blue. The tan area corresponding to the Lutheran Evangelical Church, perhaps corresponds to the area that drew Scandinavian immigrants, and the grey counties in the Great Basin have Mormon pluralities.

The divides that show up in our politics have rather deep cultural roots.

Woolies and Soweto Gospel Choir: Madiba Tribute

Good News on World Health

Prevalence of Malaria

I quote from The Guardian:

The number of children under the age of five dying from malaria has halved since 2000 and is predicted to fall still further over the next two years, according to the World Health Organisation's flagship report on the disease. 

Between 2000 and 2012, malaria deaths among under-fives fell by 51%, says the 2013 world malaria report, published on Wednesday. Across all age groups, global deaths fell by an estimated 45%. If the trend continues, deaths will fall by 63% for children under five and by 56% for all ages by 2015, big steps towards meeting global targets to reduce malaria cases and mortality rates. 

The report estimates that 3.3m malaria deaths have been averted since 2001, more than two-thirds in the 10 countries with the highest number of malaria cases in 2000. About 3m of those deaths would have been among children under five living in sub-Saharan Africa.

After World War II it was thought that malaria could be eradicated. I think that might have been technically feasible, although the long term persistence of a species of the agent of the disease had not been realized. The greater problem was probably the ability to manage effective programs by weak governments and the ability to sustain the political will to finance and support the effort for many years.

The effort failed, and the fall back position of control of malaria allowed for millions upon millions of deaths over the decades. Some fairly large areas of the world suffered hyperendemic malaria for decades.

It was also noted that the vertical campaign organizational structure seemed inefficient, and more integrated primary health services might control malaria while also attacking other major killers.

We still await a malaria vaccine and the development of backup drugs against the disease if those now in use prove ineffective. Still, the news is good!

Check out WHO's World Malaria Report 2013.

What Does the PISA Report Tell Us About U.S. Education?

The statement of the problem seems correct, but the video doesn/t follow through.

Schools filled with poor kids have kids that do poorly on the PISA tests. In other countries, these are the schools and kids that get the most help. In the USA, these schools are concentrated in the South and West (see my earlier post), and get fewer resources than in more affluent areas. The local control of schools, gives local communities scarred by a history of racism, the responsibility for providing well financed good schools and good teachers to their minority communities. Guess what happens.

The good news is that a lot of the country that is more affluent and better educated provides good education for its kids, and those kids show up pretty well on the PISA test comparisons.

By the way, some cultures teach more intensively for tests, and I remain unsure that tests are good enough to measure what is needed for a good life and a good society. 

The Safety Net Helps, but where is the inclusive economic growth?

I quote from an article in The Washington Post:

Government programs such as food stamps and unemployment insurance have made significant progress in easing the plight of the poor in the half-century since the launch of the war on poverty, according to a major new study........ 

According to the new research, the safety net helped reduce the percentage of Americans in poverty from 26 percent in 1967 to 16 percent in 2012. The results were especially striking during the most recent economic downturn, when the poverty rate barely budged despite a massive increase in unemployment. 

While the government has helped keep poverty at bay, the economy by itself has failed to improve the lives of the very poor over the past 50 years. Without taking into account the role of government policy, more Americans — 29 percent — would be in poverty today, compared with 27 percent in 1967............ 

Among the researchers’ discoveries was that deep poverty — incomes below 50 percent of the poverty line — has been stable at 5 percent of the population for about 40 years and that the safety net has grown especially powerful in protecting children from poverty.

Source

The safety net seems to be helping quite a bit, although one person in six in poverty, and one in 20 deep poverty seems unacceptable to me. Perhaps we need to do more for those living rough on the streets and those with mental illness that keep them in poverty.

It is good that the number of children in poverty is lower, but the rate is not nearly low enough.

The problem is that our economy and our economic policies are making the rich much richer, giving the people with the highest incomes sky high incomes, while leaving the poor in poverty (and as recent posts showed, the middle class stagnating). Trickle down is not working and we need what Obama has been calling for -- a middle class led economic boom, with long term growth based on innovation and supported by government investment in infrastructure, human resources, and science and technology.

Luka Bloom & Sinead O'Connor - view to Golden Gate

This is what Luka Bloom posted on Facebook:

On the day the world gathers to remember Nelson Mandela, this song comes to mind. To walk from prison after 27 years, your heart full of forgiveness, love and hope, is so inspiring. Never underestimate the power of love. Sweet dreams great man.

The American Public Knows Less About the World than You May Realize.

1000 people in the United States were asked ten questions. Here are the results for a couple of them:

Look at the whole Gapminder report.

If we assume that people are less educated than they really are, will we expect less of them in other ways? If so, that is a dangerous ignorance.

If we fail to understand that poverty has been alleviated to a historically unprecedented degree, will we lose faith in poverty alleviation? If so, that is a dangerous ignorance.

A couple of graphs say it all.

Robert Reich suggested defining middle class as those with income levels 50 percent above and below the median income.

Source: The Washington Post

Source: The Washington Post

One of the Major Problems of Our Country

Source: The Washington Post

"Low-income students made up at least half the public school student population in 17 states in 2011, a marked increase from 2000, when four states topped 50 percent."

Want to bet how many of those kids come from black, Hispanic or lower social class white households? Want to bet how many of those kids will score low on the international PISA comparison tests? Want to bet on how much their lack of social mobility will cost the nation and how it will threaten the retirement of their own and related generations?

Worth thinking about

The conservative mind believes that the unemployed and the poor need less money in order to be adequately motivated, while the rich and wealthy need more money for adequate motivation. Robert Reich

On the Founding Documents of the USA.

The history book club I belong is going to discuss the founding documents of the United States rather than a specific book this week. As a result I have been reading and thinking about those documents, and have come to a somewhat different view than I had earlier.

John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence

The Continental Congress' Declaration and Resolves was produced by the first Continental Congress in 1774. It cites rights of the people of the American colonies and acts by Parliament that violate those rights. In view of the violation of rights, the members of the Congress agreed to a boycott, agreed to call for support from the people of the British Isles and the American colonies, and agreed to petition the king for redress.

The Declaration of Independence was promulgated in 1776, after the Revolutionary War had been going on for a year and the Americans had had initial success. The Declaration states in its preamble that its purpose is to explain to mankind why independence has been declared. I perceive that the Declaration was phrased in such a way as to gain support for independence. not simply as a statement of fact. Thus states, in all of which slavery was legal, declared all men equal with a right to freedom. The Declaration provides a long list of grievances, and rather than blaming the Parliament as the Continental Congress did two years before, blames the king. The Declaration of Independence was first sent to the supporters of independence in the American states to be read aloud, and then more widely distributed in printed form. It soon reached England and mainland Europe, and eventually Latin America.

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union are dated 1778. They cobble together a confederation of independent states for common defense, for the security of their liberties and for their common welfare, but leave almost all the functions of government in those states. Actions of the Confederation generally require the consent of nine states. Canada is invited to join the Confederation.

The Battle of Yorktown, concluded in 1781 led to treaty negotiations, and the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the war in 1783 (ratified by the Congress of the Confederation in 1784). The British had lost the war in large part because France, the Netherlands and Spain had joined the Americans against Britain.  The Treaty of Paris assigned territory to the United States from Canada to Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.

The fragility of the United States of America struck me. France, England and Spain -- the great powers of the time -- all were actively managing colonies in the Americas. The states individually and collectively had a small population, a small economy, and little industrial capacity.  If they did not stick together, it seemed very likely that territory would be picked off by one or another of the European powers, or perhaps shared among them. Not only did the states have to maintain their union, but they needed a form of common government that could provide military protection for all, and raise income to support the military. I suspect that they only dimly appreciated the economic value that the large common market would provide.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation established governance over a large area. In that area, conflicting claims by several states had been ceded to the Confederation.  The Ordinance included a bill of rights and outlawed slavery in the territory. It established procedures for the transformation of the territory into states as immigration provided sufficient population, which served as precedents for the development of the western states. It remained in force after the Constitution was ratified and the Constitutional government was established.

Constitutional Convention by Junius Brutus Stearns

A Convention was convened in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation since they had proved inadequate to good governance of the union. The Convention was transformed into a Constitutional Convention, and the new Constitution was signed in 1787 and ratified in 1788. The constitution assigned functions and limited powers to each of the three branches of government -- legislative, executive and judiciary. Surprisingly, it did not define duties. Thus the legislature, the most powerful branch, has the authority to appropriate funds for the operation of the government, but it does not have a Constitutionally defined duty to do so; the members of Congress can not be held in dereliction of duty for failing to appropriate funds for the operation of the executive branch.

Small states managed to negotiate a compromise in which each state would have two senators in the Senate (while the delegations in the House of Representatives would be proportionate to its population). The states with economies dependent on the institution of slavery successfully protected that institution in the creation of the Constitution, and in fact gained representation in the House of Representatives including 3/5th of their slaves.

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was added as a result of concerns raised in the ratification of the Constitution. Twelve amendments were adopted by Congress in 1789, and the ten forming the Bill of Rights were ratified in 1791.  They limit the power of the federal government over individuals and over states.

Here are a few useful websites for those interested in founding documents:

• The Federalist Papers
• The Founders' Constitution (An online version of a book with many documents)
• Constite (An online data base on constitutions of many countries)

Maya Angelou's Poem for Nelson Mandela

Literacy counts

Source

On savings versus consumption

Source

In my previous post I showed date indicating that more income is going to the top 10 percent, and especially to the top one percent of all tax payers. The chart above suggests that the shift in shares of income means that more of the total income of the society is going into saving, and thus less into consumption.

Does economic growth come from increases in consumption or increases in investment? Trickle down theory -- that growth comes from increasing income for the already affluent -- is pretty much discredited in the modern world. The rapid increase in wealth and in income of the rich in the last few years does not seem to have resulted in robust economic growth, as shown in the following graph.

Source

Perhaps if we focused on increasing demand, for example by increasing the minimum wage we might see more impact on employment and income. An increase in tax income, perhaps by reducing tax breaks for the rich or increasing tax rates on the highest income people, might help in paying for food stamps and extended unemployment benefits that would increase consumption by the poor.

On Income Inequality in the USA

The Top Decile Income Share, 1917-2012

Source: "Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States"

Decomposing the Top Decile US Income Share into 3 Groups, 1913-2012

Source: "Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States"

I quote from an article from the Pew Research Center (which is based on research by Emmanuel Saez):

In 1928, the top 1% of families received 23.9% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90% received 50.7%. But the Depression and World War II dramatically reshaped the nation’s income distribution: By 1944 the top 1%’s share was down to 11.3%, while the bottom 90% were receiving 67.5%, levels that would remain more or less constant for the next three decades. 

But starting in the mid- to late 1970s, the uppermost tier’s income share began rising dramatically, while that of the bottom 90% started to fall. The top 1% took heavy hits from the dot-com crash and the Great Recession but recovered fairly quickly: Saez’s preliminary estimates for 2012 (which will be updated next month) have that group receiving nearly 22.5% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90%’s share is below 50% for the first time ever (49.6%, to be precise).

And:

More than half (55%) of Republicans said the economic system is fair to most people, but majorities of Democrats (75%) and independents (63%) said it favors the wealthy. And 61% of Democrats and 50% of independents said the gap was a very big problem, versus only 28% of Republicans. Four-in-ten Republicans termed the gap either a small problem (22%) or not a problem at all (18%).

Ten percent of the American people have more income than the other 90 percent. What does it take to convince Republicans that the distribution of income is not fair?

There are a number of reasons that the current inequality in America is a problem:

• There is little mobility in such a society. Giving our young people less economic opportunity than do European countries is a betrayal of our heritage; allowing that we are wronging our young people.
• If the young see little chance of moving up in society, and their parents see little chance that the children will do better than they have done, it will erode the trust in our institutions.
• The rich will use their economic power to buy even more political influence. They are conservative, and will use their economic and political power to conserve their wealth and influence. The American growth engine will slow as a result.
• Scientists are discovering what many have suspected; the rich are less empathetic than the rest of us. The will not use their economic and political power to offer a hand up the middle class, nor will they be generous to those in real need as might be done in a society with a stronger more influential middle class.

“Not enough people pay attention to scholarly history. They never did, and I don’t believe they ever will.”
“What people believe to be true about their past is usually more important . . . than truth itself.”Michael Kammen

Lets Talk Facts About Health Insurance

There is a good post by Sarah Kliff on the WP Wonkblog about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Most Americans already have health insurance: 49% through their employment, 16% through Medicaid, 13% though Medicare, and 1% through other public programs.

Five percent have individual policies that they have purchased for themselves on the open market; it is a portion of these who are finding their insurance cancelled. As Juan Williams says, it is the companies that have chosen to cancel the policies rather than bring them up to code. I suppose some of the people whose current policies are being cancelled will pay more for the replacements, but they may get more for their money. Others will shop wisely on the exchanges and get comparable coverage at lower cost.

16% of Americans are now uninsured.

17 million Americans are expected to qualify for new tax subsidies under Obamacare.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the number of uninsured will go down by 25 million because of Obamacare by 2023, but 31 million will be left without medical insurance at the end of the decade.

Will the demand for health care services increase? I don't know. Improved access to preventive services will probably reduce the demand for curative (often more expensive) services. Will the 25 million newly insured people actually use more services (especially those receiving tax subsidies) than they would otherwise? Perhaps, but we have social standards that hospitals have to give care to those who need it, whether the patients can pay or not. Moreover, some of those uninsured folk would pay out of pocket for the services that they use. Those currently insured who gain new access to preventive services will probably get sick less often and less seriously, and thus use fewer curative services.

Will the health sector cost more than it would have without Obamacare? I doubt it. The rate of increase in health costs has gone down as a result of Obamacare. If there is an increase in demand for services, which might tend to increase prices, there will also be elements of Obamacare which tend to decrease costs of health services.

Will there be a decrease in the quality of services. I doubt it. The ethics of doctors are strong and they are committed to providing quality services. I believe that some services delivered now are not delivered to achieve medical benefits for the patients, but for the purposes of the provider; some of these will go away. People should feel happy that they are no longer subject to such interventions.

For the last 400,000 years, CO2 in the atmosphere never topped 300 ppm. Now it’s near 400 ppm.

Source: The Washington Post

The increase in greenhouse gases (Carbon dioxide and others) is expected to increase over this century, leading to an increase in average atmospheric and sea surface temperatures. More Carbon dioxide will be absorbed in the oceans making them more acidic, and threatening coral reefs and other sea life. The ocean levels will rise. Coastal zones will be flooded. Weather and climate will change, leading to changes in farming patterns. People in large numbers will be forced to migrate.

It would be possible to reduce emissions by public policies, but politicians are unwilling or unable to negotiate the reforms. In part that is due to the fact that so many deny the scientific evidence. Others I am sure think that they will take immediate benefits from bad policies and be dead before our descendants suffer the consequences.

The long term decline in interest in UNESCO seems to continue

President Obama made an important speech today!

I quote from President Obama's speech today:

I believe this is the defining challenge of our time:  Making sure our economy works for every working American.  It’s why I ran for President.  It was at the center of last year’s campaign.  It drives everything I do in this office.  And I know I’ve raised this issue before, and some will ask why I raise the issue again right now.  I do it because the outcomes of the debates we’re having right now -- whether it’s health care, or the budget, or reforming our housing and financial systems -- all these things will have real, practical implications for every American.  And I am convinced that the decisions we make on these issues over the next few years will determine whether or not our children will grow up in an America where opportunity is real.

Now, the premise that we’re all created equal is the opening line in the American story.  And while we don’t promise equal outcomes, we have strived to deliver equal opportunity -- the idea that success doesn’t depend on being born into wealth or privilege, it depends on effort and merit.  And with every chapter we’ve added to that story, we’ve worked hard to put those words into practice.  

It was Abraham Lincoln, a self-described “poor man’s son,” who started a system of land grant colleges all over this country so that any poor man’s son could go learn something new.

When farms gave way to factories, a rich man’s son named Teddy Roosevelt fought for an eight-hour workday, protections for workers, and busted monopolies that kept prices high and wages low.

When millions lived in poverty, FDR fought for Social Security, and insurance for the unemployed, and a minimum wage.

When millions died without health insurance, LBJ fought for Medicare and Medicaid.

Together, we forged a New Deal, declared a War on Poverty in a great society.  We built a ladder of opportunity to climb, and stretched out a safety net beneath so that if we fell, it wouldn’t be too far, and we could bounce back.  And as a result, America built the largest middle class the world has ever known.  And for the three decades after World War II, it was the engine of our prosperity. 

Now, we can’t look at the past through rose-colored glasses.  The economy didn’t always work for everyone.  Racial discrimination locked millions out of poverty -- or out of opportunity.  Women were too often confined to a handful of often poorly paid professions.  And it was only through painstaking struggle that more women, and minorities, and Americans with disabilities began to win the right to more fairly and fully participate in the economy.   

 Perhaps that right to an equal opportunity should have been enshrined visibly in the Declaration of Rights. Certainly some of the reforms of our country of which we are justly proud are those which ended slavery, offered civil rights to racial minorities, and started to even the playing field for women and the disabled.

History Timeline: World Religions Conquest Map

A brief time-lapse history of religious rule and expansion from 3000BC to present day; Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam. Enjoy the map and music. Beautifully made.

For some reason I have not thought much about the expansion of Christianity from the Mediterranean north in Eurasia, nor the expansion of Christianity into Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand in the Colonial period.

I tend to have thought about the conflict between Christianity and Islam in terms of the Crusades in the Middle East and the Reconquista but not much in terms of the boundary between the Christian south and Muslim north in Africa -- which of course has been violent and in the news lately.

The boundary between Islam and Hinduism, especially now between India and Pakistan is put into better light by this video.

Of course, this doesn't show the divisions within religions -- Roman versus Greek and other Eastern Catholic churches and Protestantism, Sunni versus Shiite, etc.

Still the obvious thing shown by the video is that certain religions have spread very widely, and very fast in terms of human history.

Corruption Correlates With Lack of Progress

Corruption around the world: Check out the results of the CPI 2013 http://t.co/pvBVnACThF
http://t.co/LXJfIVsbaN

Graph from WP clearly shows failure of US schools.

The United States posted mostly average scores on the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, a study comparing math, reading and science proficiency of 15-year-olds.  The graph compares US performance to a selection of top performers from the  from 65 countries and economies that participated. Read the related story in The Washington Post.

The United States wants to compete internationally by working smart, not by working cheap. The competition in the future in international markets will be from the countries teaching their kids to work smart -- and they seem to be the Asian tigers, Japan and Korea, and some of the European countries. Not good news for those Americans who expect to live for the next 40 years or more (the folk under 40). If you are a young parent, the poor job our schools are doing will affect your retirement income.

A thought about government funding of anti-terrorist activities.

The perception of risk seems to reflect many things other than the probability of death and injury. Familiar risks like those of gun violence and auto accidents don't seem to be as worrisome as risks related to recent events that got a lot of media attention -- 9/11 and mass shootings.

The news media of course focus on "newsworthy events" rather than continuing social problems; the more likely the images relating the events are to generate an emotional response and draw viewers, the more likely they are to be played over and over on television, placed above the fold on newspapers, and featured on web pages.

Ideally we would like to see Congress allocate public funds in such a way as to do the most good. If it can save 1000 lives with one program but only 100 with an alternative program at the same cost, we want the most cost-effective program to be funded. But if voters mistakenly believe that their risks are greater from the less cost-effective program, legislators may get away with voting for the less cost effective alternative.

If voters don't know how much a program costs then they have even less opportunity to judge whether it is cost effective. Thus the intelligence agencies that have secret budgets don't get the voter scrutiny that would encourage them to be cost effective.

People also like simple solutions to simple problems. Drone strikes against terrorist leaders are easy to understand; the use of soft power to reduce extremist anger against the USA is harder to understand and harder to measure the impact.

And of course, politicians respond not only to the expressed concerns of their constituents, but also to the interests of the major donors to their campaigns and to the lobbyists who help them raise money and obtain (one sided) information on issues. Put billions of dollars into a  secret intelligence industry, and don't be surprised if politicians become seized with the urgency of funding the contracts given by the government intelligence agencies.

Did you know this about the economy?

Source: "Presidents and the Economy: A Forensic Investigation" via
"Causality and Policy Outcomes: The Case of Presidents and Economic Growth"

 I can't prove it, but I would be good money that all Democratic and all Republican candidates for president since World War II have claimed that their party's economic policies were better than those of the other party. That is, no candidate would stand up and say "elect me and I will probably deliver less economic prosperity than would my opponent."

So how have the Republican presidents done in comparison with the Democratic presidents. The graph shows GDP growth for 28 years of Democratic administrations and 36 years of Republican administrations.

During the 64 years that make up these 16 [presidential] terms, real GDP growth averaged 3.33% at an annual rate. But the average growth rates under Democratic and Republican presidents were starkly different: 4.35% and 2.54% respectively.

Roger Pielke Jr.suggests that there are problems with the analysis, but is your belief in the claims of economic policy superiority by Republicans reduced by the data? Mine is! 

"African poverty is falling…much faster than you think"

Good news from a couple of economists.

GDP per capita in Sub-Saharan Africa dropped significantly from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, and extreme poverty was much higher at the end of that period than at its beginning. That was the bad old news.

Now analysis indicates that per capita GDP has increased rapidly and consistently for more than a decade, and extreme poverty has dropped accordingly.

Check out the source for more detail on the effect of mineral wealth and access to the coast.

“To political freedom he strove to add economic freedom.”

President Coolidge once asked me, in discussing these men, what was my estimate of Roosevelt. “Well,” I answered, “I happen to know that Mr. Roosevelt said the cutting of the Panama Canal was the greatest and most important service he rendered to the nation.” Mr. Coolidge jumped to his feet and, with his index finger pointing upward, he said, “Have you forgotten that he was the only President who dared to tell big business, “Thus far you can go, and no farther, for the safety of our country”?
Gutzon Borglum (sculptor of Mount Rushmore)

President Calvin Coolidge, that paragon of Republican values, gave the speech at the beginning of work on Mount Rushmore, and in so doing honored Teddy Roosevelt for striving to add economic freedom to political freedom.

Quotation

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
George Washington, The Farewell Address

Republicans might think of this before they refuse to pass a budget and shut down the government, or try again to block the Affordable Care Act implementation.

Incidentally, before the Republicans again threaten to force the nation to default on the public debt, they might consider this from Washington, also in the Farewell Address:

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit.

Viola organista made by Sławomir Zubrzycki

This instrument was based on an idea first proposed by Leonardo Da Vinci. People had produced versions over the centuries, but none had survived in playable state.  Starting in 2009, Sławomir Zubrzycki created the harpsichord-shaped, bowed, stringed instrument he plays in the video above.

There is a big difference between having an idea for an invention and reducing it to practice.

Read more......

Incidentally, I played this YouTube video using my laptop computer via Chromecast on my TV )for the better sound). I hope Da Vinci would have appreciated that possibility.

Thinking about jurors assessing evidence of criminal guilt.

The earliest known portrait of Thomas Bayes,
which may not actually be of the originator of Bayes Theorem

The idea of an American criminal trial is that the jury is to presume innocence and not to convict unless guilt is demonstrated during the trial beyond a reasonable doubt. I tend to think in terms of Bayesian inference, and find both aspects of that formula troubling.

What does it mean to presume innocence? If you assume a priori that there is zero probability of guilt, then no amount of evidence would result in a probability of guilt above zero. Perhaps the base assumption is that all the members of the community have equal probability of the criminal behavior.  So in a town with 1000 people, one might start out with the assumption that the accused had one chance in 1000 of being guilty, while in a city of a million inhabitants that a priori probability might be one in a million. Somehow that doesn't seem to get at the fairness we assume to be the basis of our judicial system; why should small town citizens be treated as more probably guilty than big city ones? Moreover, we know that men, and especially young men are more likely to commit crimes than women, and old women are especially unlikely criminals.

What probability of guilt corresponds to "beyond a reasonable doubt"? What odds would you want to get to bet that the accused was guilty? An even bet seems clearly to imply a reasonable doubt. How about 2 to 1? 3 to 1? 5 to 1? 10 to 1? Does "reasonable" depend on the characteristics of the accused? Would you want a young person whose life might be ruined by conviction of a major crime to be more clearly guilty than an older person accused of a minor crime?

How good are jurors in assessing the weight of evidence? Eye witness testimony seems to be convincing, but we know that eye witnesses are often wrong. How often? We also know that some people are face blind, and their eye witness testimony seems less credible than that of other people. How about the circumstances of the identification -- how long between the crime and the identification, and the role of the police with the witness. Those are things that we expect a defense attorney to bring out in confrontation with the witness.

Expert testimony seems similarly difficult for jurors to properly evaluate in probabilistic terms. We know that there have been problems with fingerprints, and that jurors (perhaps influenced by popular fiction) tend to believe all fingerprint evidence is equally credible and strong, while in fact much is flawed. Polygraph data was once believed a gold standard, and is now banned, yet it too could provide some information to the jury if properly interpreted.

I got to thinking about this in terms of DNA evidence. It is one of the few kinds of evidence that can strongly incriminate a person on the basis of physical evidence obtained from the scene of a crime. Experts have testified that matching a large number of points in a genetic profile, each with several alternative possible values gives astronomical odds against false matches. On the other hand, having spent time debugging complex computer programs, I know that bugs can exist in even well vetted programs. Moreover, people make mistakes -- then send the wrong sample to the lab, they send the wrong results from the lab to the police. What is the chance that there are identical twins, the wrong one of which is the accused in court? Certainly less than one in a trillion which has been cited as the odds against a false match of modern DNA matching. Apparently our courts do not require that the attorney for the accused have the right to confront all the people involved in the chain of DNA evidence, so the jurors don't have full opportunity to assess probabilities.

And of course, we know that people are not good at betting, especially if they have not learned how to assess odds. They are especially poor at assessing odds for very likely or very unlikely events. People bet more on long shots at horse races than experts feel that they should, making it possible for expert punters to profit even after the track takes its cut from the parimutual pool.

We also know that a group of people making a joint decision is likely to do a better job than an individual. In the one time I served on a petit jury, the members took their responsibility seriously, and I thought did a good job. Maybe the jury system is the best we can do.

On the other hand, maybe schools should prepare people for doing a good job when serving as jurors. Understanding how to evaluate evidence and how to judge probabilities might help the students later in life, not only when serving on juries, but in business and as voters.

Poverty is Falling

Source

Average per capita income is only part of the story. Much of the world has reduced extreme poverty to very low levels (any level greater than zero is of course unacceptable). Africa has remained the exception, although it too appears to be beginning to reduce its rate of extreme poverty.

Much of development assistance is not focused on increasing average income, but on decreasing rates of poverty. (The one percent of Americans who get nearly one-quarter of income in the U.S. are even less interested in being taxed to increase the income of the rich in other countries than they are in being taxed to reduce the worst aspects of poverty in their own country.)

Correlation Between per capita Income 1960 and 2008S

Source

One conclusion from this graph is that there is a strong correlation of national per capita income over a half century. Poor countries tend to remain poor, rich countries tend to remain rich.

A second conclusion is that correlation is not destiny. Some of the middle income countries in 1960 became rich by 2008, and some fell into poverty.

Economic development is hard, but possible.

Red and Blue are More Divided than in the Past

Source: The Washington Post

Look at the horizontal axis that measures political ideology. In the 1950s, the Republicans (red) were more like the Democrats (blue) than they are today,. In the 1950s there was some considerable overlap in ideology between middle of the road Democrats and Republicans, which no longer exists.

Look at the vertical axis that measures how frequently the Representative votes with his/her party. In the 1950s quite a few Democrats and Republicans voted with the other party a significant portion  of the time; now block voting characterizes members of both parties, although a few Democrats on the right wing of the party still vote occasionally with the Republicans.

Both the red dots and the blue dots cluster more closely in the last Congress than they did in the 84th Congress. Republicans, as a party, have moved more to the right. More Democrats represent progressive ideology, and the right wing of the Democratic party is weaker and its Representatives in the House less conservative. (Remember the realignment of the conservative South during the Civil Rights movement, when it stopped electing Democrats and switched to electing Republicans.)

In the 1950s, either party could pass a bill by making it somewhat more acceptable to the centrist members of the other party. Now the Republicans drive bills through the Republican-majority House of Representatives that get shot down in the Democrat-majority Senate.

The explanation of gridlock made visual.

Who Are The People Working For Minimum Wage?

Source: The Washington Post

The graphs show, as one might expect, that a lot of the people working for minimum wage are under 25 years of age, and that working women are much more likely to be paid the minimum wage than working men.

What surprised me is that nearly 30 percent of American workers are employed in the leisure and hospitality industry or in wholesale and retail trade. Reminds me of an economy in which people work by taking in each other's laundry, or worse a society where lots of poor people work for peanuts serving their more affluent countrymen. 

A thought for Thanksgiving.

What Francis' EVANGELII GAUDIUM says about economics.

I quote from the English language version of the Apostolic Exhortation:

52. In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people’s welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences. A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich countries. The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity. This epochal change has been set in motion by the enormous qualitative, quantitative, rapid and cumulative advances occuring in the sciences and in technology, and by their instant application in different areas of nature and of life. We are in an age of knowledge and information, which has led to new and often anonymous kinds of power. 

No to an economy of exclusion 

53. Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”. 

54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us. 

No to the new idolatry of money 

55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption. 

56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule. 

No to a financial system which rules rather than serves 

57. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside of the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement. Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs”.[55] 

58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings.

he Guardian titles its coverage of this discussion "Pope Francis calls unfettered capitalism 'tyranny' and urges rich to share wealth".  "Unfettered capitalism"? Really?

Would the Guardian call rules that English drive on the left side of the road and stop at stop signs and stop lights "fettering cars". Maybe they don't remember what fetter really means.

The way the map of the states should look!

Source: The Washington Post

Republicans, taking advantage of their long term political domination after the Civil War, took advantage of an oddity in the Constitution to increase Republican influence in the Senate and the electoral college. They did this by creating a lot of states with small populations that would be dominated by Republicans. Look at the map, and you will see where they are.

I will admit that the government from the time of the Northwest Territory had a policy of making states of approximately equal size, admitting them to statehood soon after they achieved a minimum population. They did not take into account the fact that some locations were suitable for urban manufacturing, and some areas had climates that would only allow sparse populations.

Food and Farming in 2030

Check out the interactive graphic from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

We will depend on yield increases to feed the increasing population while improving their diet. IFPRI notes that environmental problems, notably global warming, will tend to reduce yields, to varietal improvement becomes still more important. Those who (in their ignorance) oppose the use of biotechnology to produce improved cultivars should explain how they think the yield increases will be achieved using only traditional breeding methods.

Posts About UNESCO that have interested people

For many years I have been interested in UNESCO, and for the past decade of so I have been sharing my thoughts on the Organization on social networking sites.

Here are my all time most popular blog postings on UNESCO:

• The United States and UNESCO: An Anecdotal History (3228 page views)
• Understanding UNESCO's Evolution (2223)
• The McBride Commission and its Findings (1620)
• Getting a Job With UNESCO (776)
• Thinking About the Evaluation of UNESCO (618)
• The UNESCO Thesaurus (617)
• Biographical Information for Ivonne Baki (who ran for Director General in 2009) (599)
• Musings: The Importance of UNESCO (574)

I also had some special purpose blogs dealing specifically with UNESCO:

• Americans for UNESCO highlights (21 posts, 10362 page views)
• Election of the UNESCO Director General (2009 election, 47 posts, 26222 page views)

I also contributed to the Global Memo blog, covering this year's election of the Director General.

I manage and post frequently on the Linked In "UNESCO's Friends" group.

Thinking about the growth of democratic governance.

Source: The Economist

The United Nations currently has 193 member states, so there are still a lot of countries that are under other forms of government. Moreover, some democracies are more democratic than others.

Still, that idea of a government of the people, by the people, for the people seems to be gaining pretty wide acceptance.

If you look at the number of people living under democratic governments some democratic countries such as India and the United States are rather large. On the other hand, China is bigger still.

A large majority of Republicans apparently back creationism.

From an article in the current Economist magazine:

(F)or decades more than 40% of all Americans have consistently told Gallup pollsters that God created humans in pretty much their current form, less than 10,000 years ago. They are embracing an account of man’s origins promoted by Young Earth Creationists who lean on a painstakingly literal reading of the Scriptures, swatting aside the counter-claims of science (fossils are a relic of Noah’s flood, they argue, and evolution is a myth peddled by atheists). In a recent poll 58% of Republicans and 41% of Democrats backed creationism. The glue that underpins such faith is the principle of Biblical inerrancy—a certainty that the Scriptures are infallibly and unchangingly true.

One would think that people who believed the bible in that way would want to read it knowingly in the languages in which it was written. I am no great linguist, but I have translated for others and I know how easy it is to put one's own interpretation in place of the original emphasis of that which one is translating. And as I read history, there have been some real screamers of mistranslations from the original Greek of the New Testament to Latin.

Languages change. Even reading Shakespeare in his original English today we require footnotes to understand fully what he is saying. That is, I suppose why churches continue to publish modern editions of the Bible -- to make the content more understandable to the modern reader.

I bet that few of the people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible have taken the trouble to really learn the languages it was written in and to read the earliest versions of the texts in those languages.

I of course would rather believe that science provides some truths newly discovered, and that the story of the Good Samaritan is better read as a parable than as a statement of fact about a specific event.