Poverty - how The Economist got it wrong
A good illustration of the misuse of science on extremely poor people comes from The Economist.
At the end of this document is a series of detailed complaints of 2013, substantially unanswered.
Instead of answering the complaints, the editor presented an answer to a draft summary by a Press Complaints Commission junior staff member. The complainant had already stated the draft had been clarified by his own summary.
The editor completely ignored the main complaint document, even after the complainant referred to the “major error” about the Millennium Declaration baseline.
The Economist continued to repeat the wrong statements about world leaders’ pledges.
On 6 June 2015 a further complaint was sent to Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor of The Economist.
Like her predecessor John Micklethwait, and the globalisation editor Matthew Bishop, she has not answered.
...................
"...secretary-general...suggests...that the world could try to halve by 2015 the figure of 1.2 billion people or 22% of its population, who currently exist in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day."
The Economist
6 April 2000
http://www.economist.com/node/299914
"A main target, set by Mr Annan and agreed to by the summiteers, is to halve by 2015 the 22% of people who live on less than a dollar a day"
7 September 2000, editorial
http://www.economist.com/node/359559
"In September 2000 the heads of 147 governments pledged that they would halve the proportion of people on the Earth living in the direst poverty by 2015, using the poverty rate in 1990 as a baseline."
The Economist
30 May 2013
From the print edition
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21578643-world-has-astonishing-chance-take-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-not
The Economist has made the same error about the pledges over many years.
Sometimes it has misled by claiming the Millennium Development Goals or targets were were agreed in 2000. They were proposed in 2001 and only mentioned by leaders at the UN in 2005.
It is not clear what other event readers would think The Economist is talking about, than the world leaders' pledges at the Millennium Summit.
For previous complaints see the end of this document.
......................................................................................
Complaint of 6 June 2015
Dear Ms Minton Beddoes,
Formal complaint
If you are unaware of this issue, you may be surprised or doubtful.
So I start by quoting a contributor to The Economist:
"as Manning (2010) notes, the MDGs are not formally endorsed by the UN membership, but described as a useful guide".
Andy Sumner and Meera Tiwari
Global Poverty Reduction to 2015 and Beyond
October 2010 Working Paper
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/771ids.pdf
John McArthur of the [Brookings] Institution, mentioned by The Economist in an article of 2014
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21620223-setting-goals-helped-save-young-lives-causes-welcome-trend , has made the same point as I make here about the Declaration baseline.
"Myth 4: The Millennium Declaration established 1990 baselines."
http://johnmcarthur.com/2015/01/origins-of-mdgs/
"Myth 4: The Millennium Declaration established 1990 baselines.
Explanation
The one substantive adjustment made by UN officials between the 2000 Mil-
lennium Declaration and the 2001 Road Map was to identify a 1990 baseline
for the 2015 targets."
http://johnmcarthur.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/SAISreview2014mcarthur.pdf
I propose that The Economist remedy the situation caused by wrong information given over some years.
It is not true that national leaders at the Millennium Summit made pledges with backdated baselines of 1990.
http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm
That is why The Economist did not mention such a baseline in the year 2000.
At the time, The Economist seemed to refer to changes from current rates, as did the Secretary-General in his recommendation document to the Summit.
The PCC told me in 2013 that they had sent Mr Micklethwait my explanation of this problem.
As far as I know, neither the term "Millennium Development Goals" nor references to a backdated baseline were used by any politician or civil servant in relation to the Summit before, during or afterwards in 2000.
A list of items with the error would be long.
I am aware that Mark Malloch Brown was a journalist at the Economist prior to his role at UNDP. I am optimistic that this will not bias or influence unduly any commitment to The Economist providing a remedy.
Just to be clear, I am not talking simply about correcting old stories. I mean a serious attempt to ensure that the effect on people's lives and what might be called their "rights" of the errors and implied inaccuracies are outweighed by action taken now by the paper.
Yours sincerely,
.......................................
"...targets that governments around the world signed up to in 2000 and promised to reach by 2015. There are eight of these [sic] so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with 21 sub-targets, from educating girls to cutting maternal mortality. Overall, the MDGs have a decent record. Some...others, such as cutting by half the share of people who live in abject poverty, have been reached."
Mar 28th 2015 | From the print edition
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21647286-proposed-sustainable-development-goals-would-be-worse-useless-169-commandments
"Specifically, I urge the Summit to adopt the target of reducing by half, between now and 2015...who lack...safe water."
"I call on ...the Heads of State and Government convened at the Millennium Summit to adopt the target of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, and so lifting more than 1 billion people out of it, by 2015."
Secretary-General, Millennium Report
27 March 2000.
www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/pdfs/We_The_Peoples.pdf
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan000923.pdf
"My Report sets a series of targets...
Within the next 15 years, I believe we can halve the population of people living in extreme poverty..."
Statement of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the General Assembly.
3 April 2000
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2000/20000403.sgsm7343.doc.html
"secretary-general...suggests...that the world could try to halve by 2015 the figure of 1.2 billion people or 22% of its population, who currently exist in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day."
The Economist
6 April 2000.
http://www.economist.com/node/299914
"A main target, set by Mr Annan and agreed to by the summiteers, is to halve by 2015 the 22% of people who live on less than a dollar a day"
The Economist, editorial. 7 September 2000
http://www.economist.com/node/359559
"The leaders put their names to many ambitious goals, including halving the number of people living in extreme poverty, and the number who do not have access to clean water, by 2015."
The Economist. 7 September 2000.
http://www.economist.com/node/359949
"We...at the dawn of a new millennium....resolve.... by 2015....to have reduced maternal mortality by three quarters, and under-five child mortality by two thirds, of their current rates."
http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm
No mention of 1990.
"under-five mortality decreased...between 1990 and 2000"
"Millennium Development Goals....proposed...the normal baseline year for the targets will be 1990"
Kofi Annan
6 September 2001
6 November 2001
"The International Development Goals (IDGs) and the development goals contained in the Millennium Declaration have recently been merged under the designation of "Millennium Development Goals" (MDGs). They have been agreed by the United Nations system, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and OECD/DAC.
...The Guidance Note is attached."
Yours sincerely,
Mark Malloch Brown Administrator UNDP
Carol Bellamy Executive Director UNICEF
Catherine Bertini Executive Director WFP
Thoraya Obaid Executive Director UNFPA"
http://www.undg.org/archive_docs/1607-MDGs_-_letter_-_MDGs_-_letter.pdf
[Later note: The letter was not available on the UNDG site in July 2015, though it was in August 2014.
It is at
http://web.archive.org/web/20140815174058/http://www.undg.org/archive_docs/1607-MDGs_-_letter_-_MDGs_-_letter.pdf .]
"high-profile politicians in rich countries ...have signed up to such laudable objectives as last year's Millennium Development Goals to reduce child mortality by two-thirds within 15 years"
The Economist, December 20 2001
www.economist.com/node/917279
"When the Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2000 they seemed Utopian. But the most important one was achieved five years early. This was to halve, by 2015, the share of people globally living on under $1.25 a day, which was 36% in 1990."
From the print edition of Mar 28th 2015
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21647316-which-mdgs-did-some-good-and-which-sdgs-might-work-good-bad-and-hideous
Reader's comment on above:
"This article makes the same major error as elsewhere in The Economist's coverage. The MDG targets for 2015 were not agreed in 2000. They were not agreed by 189 governments at the General Assembly at the Millennium Summit. The Millennium Declaration in fact has no 1990 backdated baseline. The Economist has for years confused the Declaration's pledges of 2000 with the MDG framework proposed by the Secretary-General in 2001, which does have the easier baseline. I refer editorial staff to my complaint via the Press Complaints Commission of 2013; and my emails to the former editor and Matthew Bishop this year. I renew my call for correction, with a view to remedy of the false impression given to the public."
"In September 2000 the heads of 147 governments pledged that they would halve the proportion of people on the Earth living in the direst poverty by 2015, using the poverty rate in 1990 as a baseline."
May 30th 2013
From the print edition
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21578643-world-has-astonishing-chance-take-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-not
Complaint to UK Press Complaints Commission, 2013:
"Proposed form of a statement by the Economist ...We referred to a "baseline of 1990" which is not in the text of the resolution..."
"The pledges were to achieve the targets in 15 years, not 25 years as in the MDG targets. The shortfall in progress on them is therefore greater than for the MDG targets."
"In fact several of the Goals' targets, subsequently agreed....are easier. The pledge on poverty - a dollar a day, hunger, water, and child and maternal mortality - did not count progress already made in 1990-2000. The MDG targets do."
"...misled that the pledges became MDG targets"
The Economist:
"189 governments who signed a pledge to halve...between 1990 and 2015".
Complainant to PCC:
"the pledge was not to halve "between 1990 and 2015"."
Editor of The Economist:
No response.
Complainant to PCC, 2014:
"There may have been a serious misunderstanding. There are significant differences between the points answered by the editor and my complaints...the wrong statement about the UN resolution...the Economist made a major error in claiming that the UN had met a pledge in the resolution of 2000"
Editor: No response.
Complainant, January 2015 to John Micklethwait, editor:
"There is no "1990" baseline in the Millennium Declaration. Please correct."
Editor: No response.
26 January 2015 to Matthew Bishop, Globalisation Editor:
Dear Mr Bishop,
...The Economist has give the wrong impression of world leaders' commitments at the Millennium Summit.
There is no 1990 baseline in the Millennium Declaration. The child and maternal mortality reductions specified are the same as in the MDG targets proposed in 2001: by two-thirds and three-quarters. But the leaders committed themselves in 2000 to those reductions from "current rates"....The World in 2015 and the article of September 27...
...General Assembly Resolution 55/2...
I renew my proposal for a correction.
The Economist: No response.
Other quotations from The Economist:
"Millennium Development Goals, established in 2000, set countries a target of cutting under-five mortality rates by two-thirds, comparing 2015 with 1990."
(2004)
"(MDGs), agreed on in 2000..."
(2006)
"targets...set by the world's leaders at a United Nations jamboree in 2000... The world has, for example, resolved to cut the rate at which mothers die from child-birth by three-quarters from 1990 to 2015"
(2007)
"In 1990 more than one person in four lacked access to safe water, according to the United Nations. By 2015 that scandal will be only half as large if the world's leaders keep the grand promises they made at the UN's New York headquarters in September 2000."
"Almost 32% of people in the developing world lived on less than a dollar a day in 1990. In 2004 that figure was 19.2%"
(2007)
"world leaders ...UN-sponsored summit... targets that were set at a similar meeting ten years ago. Most of the goals involved reductions by 2015 from 1990 levels"
(2010)
"(MDGs), targets set by the UN in 2000."
(2011)
"MDGs are a set of eight goals that all members of the United Nations signed up to in 2000. The goals set targets...Since 1990 mortality rates for infants and children have fallen by only about half the amount they need to decline if the MDGs are to be achieved."
(2012)
"In September 2000 the heads of 147 governments pledged that they would halve the proportion of people on the Earth living in the direst poverty by 2015, using the poverty rate in 1990 as a baseline. It was the first of a litany of worthy aims enshrined in the United Nations millennium development goals (MDGs). Many of these aimssuch as cutting maternal mortality by three quarters and child mortality by two thirdshave not been met. But the goal of halving poverty has been. Indeed, it was achieved five years early."
(2013)
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21578643-world-has-astonishing-chance-take-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-not
"targets to replace the Millennium Development Goals ( MDGs), which were set in September 2000 and expire in 2015...The worlds achievement in the field of poverty reduction is, by almost any measure, impressive. ...the aim of halving global poverty between 1990 and 2015 was achieved five years early"
(2013)
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim
"Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000...with the MDGs expiring at the end of 2015"
Nov 20th 2014
From The World In 2015 print edition
http://www.economist.com/news/21631961-world-comes-together-set-itself-some-more-development-targets-goals-goals-goals
"as the end-of-2015 deadline nears for achieving eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set in 2000"
Nov 20th 2014
From The World In 2015 print edition
http://www.economist.com/news/21632698-calendar-2015
"The world will reach a turning-point in 2015. We have known this would be so since 2000, when 189 countries pledged to make progress on eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) over 15 years. There have been important improvements in most of these. Progress has been greatest in the area of poverty and hunger: the aim of reducing extreme-poverty rates by 50% was reached in 2010....Two big MDG shortfalls remain..."
http://www.economist.com/news/21631845-broader-approach-development-will-be-needed-2015-and-beyond-suggests-michelle
Nov 20th 2014 | From The World In 2015 print edition
"In 2000, the UN set eight Millennium Development Goals. Improving maternal health and cutting infant-mortality rates were key aims. Happily, the incidence of childhood deaths has been sliced nearly in half since 1990."
http://www.economist.com/news/21632032-health-care
Nov 18th 2014 | From The World In 2015 print edition
"Poor data afflict... the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The targets, which include ending extreme poverty, cutting infant mortality and getting all children into primary school, were set by UN members in 2000, to be achieved by 2015."
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21632520-rich-countries-are-deluged-data-developing-ones-are-suffering-drought.
Nov 15th 2014 From the print edition
"2000, when 189 countries pledged to make progress on eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) over 15 years. There have been important improvements in most of these. Progress has been greatest in the area of poverty and hunger: the aim of reducing extreme-poverty rates by 50% was reached in 2010."
http://www.economist.com/news/21631845-broader-approach-development-will-be-needed-2015-and-beyond-suggests-michelle
November 10 2014
From The World in 2015 print edition
"...9.7m in 2000. Achieving a two-thirds decline from 1990 [sic] mortality rates (when 12.7m children aged five or under died) was one of the UNs Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight development targets for 2015 that were approved at a UN summit [sic] in 2000." [sic]
"During the 1990s the number of child deaths was already falling steeply"
"John McArthur of the Brookings Institution in a new paper..."
[John McArthur has also written a paper saying the same as the complainant about the baselines]
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21620223-setting-goals-helped-save-young-lives-causes-welcome-trend
September 27, 2014
"in 2000 the UN committed itself to eight ambitious Millennium Development Goals for reducing global poverty by 2015."
Economics A-Z terms beginning with I.
Undated
http://www.economist.com/economics-a-to-z/i#node-21529620
"In 2000 policy wonks from governments and aid organisations agreed on what would become the Millennium Development Goals, an ambitious set of development targets for 2015."
Apr 12th 2014
From the print edition
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21600714-chronic-diseases-and-cash-squeeze-are-prompting-donors-rethink-spending-new
"Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)a series of socio-economic targets agreed in 2000. These include halving extreme poverty, ...reducing child mortality rates..."
http://gfs.eiu.com/Article.aspx?articleType=rf&articleId=1840626768&secId=5
June 19th 2013
The Economist, 30 May/1 June 2013:
"In September 2000 the heads of 147 governments pledged that they would halve the proportion of people on the Earth living in the direst poverty by 2015, using the poverty rate in 1990
(sic)
as a baseline...the goal
(sic)
of halving poverty
(sic)
....was achieved five years early."
"In 2000, world leaders drafting the UN Millennium Declaration adopted three health goals, which signatory countries were expected to reach by 2015. These included reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases.... in a 2010 report, the WHO noted that overall progress towards meeting these Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (sic) had been less than impressive. Just six countries were deemed on track to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds during the time specified"
(sic - there were actually two times specified. The WHO is talking, as do all UN reports in recent years, about the easier targets of reducing the 1990 rates. They are not talking about what countries "were expected to reach" in 2000, which in the case of child and maternal mortality were reductions from the "current rates".)
http://www.economistinsights.com/sites/default/files/downloads/EIU-Janssen_HealthcareAfrica_Report_Web.pdf
The future of healthcare in Africa
The Economist Intelligence Unit 2012
"The MDGs are a set of eight goals that all members of the
United Nations signed up to in 2000. The goals set targets to, for
example, halve the proportion of people living below the poverty line...The world
achieved this, the first MDG, in 2010: the share of absolute poverty
fell from 43% of the global population in 1990 to around 21% in 2010.
...Other goals
(sic)
have also met already (such as the proportion of the world's population with access to safe water)
(sic - there are no statistics on safety of water)
..."
"MDGs are a set of eight goals that all members of the United Nations signed up to in 2000.
(sic)
The goals set targets...Since 1990 mortality rates for infants and children have fallen by only about half the amount they need to decline if the MDGs are to be achieved."
(sic - the 2000 pledge was for halving "current rates", not the 1990 rates)
Why nutrition matters
Apr 24th 2012
http://www.economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2012/04/development
"The United Nations reckons that in 2008 over a quarter of children in the developing world were underweight, a sixth of people lacked access to safe drinking water, and just under half used insanitary toilets or none at all. But while these figures are disquieting, a smaller fraction of people were affected than was the case two decades ago. So such data also indicate the world's progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets adopted by world leaders at the UN ten years ago.
(sic - inaccurate)
"The leaders gave themselves 15 years to reach the goalposts set in 2000."
(True, but not the "goalposts" the Economist is talking about - targets selected in 2001 under the name of MDGs).
The Millennium Development Goals
Global targets, local ingenuity
Sep 23rd 2010
From the print edition
http://www.economist.com/node/17090934
"Fewer young children die each year than was previously thought, argues a provocative new report...investment in measuring mortality that was spurred by the promulgation in 2000 of the UN's Millennium Development Goals. This is a set of objectives for the reduction of poverty and its associated ills, that UN members have agreed to try to achieve by 2015. ....As the old saying among bureaucrats goes, he who controls the numbers commands the power. With luck, that control is passing to people who are getting the numbers right."
http://www.economist.com/node/16214104
May 27th 2010 | From the print edition
The great aid debate
http://www.economist.com/node/1729494
Apr 23rd 2003
From the print edition
"First came the Millennium Development Goals, agreed at the United Nations in 2000. These envisage, among other things, universal primary education by 2015 and a substantial reduction in global poverty by the same date."
http://www.economist.com/node/3270702
"The United Nations Millennium Development Goals, established in 2000
(sic),
set countries a target of cutting under-five mortality rates by two-thirds, comparing 2015 with 1990."
(sic)
Child mortality
Oct 7th 2004
From the print edition
"The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted at a United Nations summit in 2000
(sic)...
the targets
(sic)
are extremely ambitious: halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty (ie, on less than a dollar a day) between 1990
(sic)
and 2015...Altogether the MDGs encompass 18 targets arranged under eight broad headings."
Recasting the case for aid
Jan 20th 2005 print edition
http://www.economist.com/node/3577440
"This week the United Nations published its annual assessment of progress toward its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets established in 2000
(sic)....
The targets cover eight areas, calling in most cases for specified improvements by 2015 measured from 1990
(sic)"
Ends without means
The United Nations has set benchmarks for progress in poor countries. Are these any use?
Sep 9th 2004 print edition
http://www.economist.com/node/3173136
"The world achieved this, the first MDG
(sic),
in 2010....2015, which is when the MDGs are supposed to be met. Other goals
(sic)
have also met already (such as the proportion of the world's population with access to safe water)
(sic - there are no statistics on safety of water) "
"A report by the IMF and World Bank casts new light on why nutrition matters. It points out that countries around the world have done a terrible job of improving nutrition.
"The two institutions use the millennium development goals to demonstrate the failure. The MDGs are a set of eight goals that all members of the United Nations signed up to in 2000
(sic).
The goals set targets to, for example, halve the proportion of people living below the poverty line (defined as $1.25 a day at 2005 purchasing power parities). The world achieved this, the first MDG
(sic),
in 2010"
Why nutrition matters
Apr 24th 2012
economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2012/04/development
"In 2000, governments from around the world congregated at the United Nations, promising to spare no effort....They set eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
(sic),
for such things as halving poverty and hunger...."
(Inaccurate: the "promises" were significantly more ambitious than the goals' targets.)
"If the MDGs are met, 500m people will escape from poverty by 2015, 250m will be spared from hunger, and 30m children who would not have lived past their fifth birthday, will. "
Whatever it takes
economist.com/node/3574421
Jan 18th 2005
"Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a host of targets...set by the world's leaders at a United Nations jamboree in 2000
(sic).
...The world has, for example, resolved
(sic)
to cut the rate at which mothers die from child-birth by three-quarters from 1990
(sic)
to 2015. The percentage of people without safe water will fall by half; infant mortality by a third."
Taking stock
Jul 6th 2007
economist.com/node/9443073
[end of complaint to editor of The Economist 6 June 2015]
..……..……..…..………………….….….………….…..……….………………..………..…..………..…….…..
Letter to The Economist, 10 October 2001
Statistics and survival
Sir,
“This year the average size of fish in the pond is higher. This confirms that, on average, the fish grew”. Later, we realised big fish lived longer than small fish.
Perhaps survival rates are relevant to what is good for the poor (Grinding the Poor, September 27) - and not just for the obvious reason.
Growth falls if the poor live longer.
Growth rises if the poor live shorter lives.
Growth rises if inequality of life length between rich and poor rises.
Inequality of life length has varied greatly in poor countries.
Among poor people, studies measure consumption [*] rather than income.
People who eat less have shorter lives.
People at the bottom of the poor group probably last less time.
Many people think the following two inferences are obviously valid.
“Average income among the poorest fifth alive now is 1% higher than for the poorest fifth alive last year. Therefore, poor people’s incomes rose on average by 1%.”.
“The proportion of poor people went down. Therefore, poor people’s incomes rose.”
Maybe it is time to find out. Survival data, like cohort data, never give rise to the “fish” mistake.
......................................
* Later note: My statement about studies measuring consumption was untrue. The fact that I made this error may be of interest.
For all large international studies, data were not on consumption but mostly on what people said they spent. See for example:
“The 2004 survey by UNSD showed that of the 55 countries that responded to the question, 30 (55 percent) base their poverty calculations on expenditure data rather than income data. The balance relied on income data, and a handful used both kinds of data. The ability to spend is primarily determined by one’s income, but the two values are not identical since households often borrow, sell assets, or draw down savings when income is low. ”
(Jonathan Morduch, Concepts of Poverty. Draft chapter for UN Statistics Division Handbook on poverty measurement. 2005. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/poverty/2.%20Chapter%202%20(15-06).doc )
National statistical departments carried out surveys. Survey questions were mostly on spending. Some questions were about what people grew and ate themselves. In a minority of surveys questions were on income. In all relevant cases, data supplied from national statistical offices for subsequent analysis by economists were on money.
My error may have stemmed from a passage by David Dollar of the World Bank, author of the document quoted by the Economist about global poverty:
“And let me emphasize that in poor countries like Vietnam, what we actually measure is what people really consume. We track how much rice, how much pork. Most poor people spend the overwhelming share of their budget on food. So, the issue is how much are they eating. So, we often say income distribution, but I want you to understand that we are measuring real consumption by people. So, when we talk about the income of the poor going up, think of it in very real terms. Malnourished people who had almost no protein are now getting more protein. That's the real issue that we are trying to get at.” (Source: Transcript of Policy Forum, Cato Institute. Is globalization good for the poor? Tuesday, September 18, 2001. http://www.cato.org/events/transcripts/010918et.pdf )
[As of 2015 the page is at
http://web.archive.org/web/20040131115316/http://www.cato.org/events/transcripts/010918et.pdf ]
It is not clear why Dr Dollar claimed to know what people were eating in different countries. Spending is not a measure of food.
Suppose I know what you spent. That does not tell me what you received in return. I need to know relevant prices of food.
Someone might say that on the face of it, it seems that for both global analyses and policy recommendations, the Governors of the World Bank, the British Government, and many economists worldwide, including some in well-known charities, confused spending with consumption.
They might also say that on the face of it the economists and politicians, whenever they used the international money data to talk about poverty, went on to confuse the concepts of “consumption” and “consumption adequacy”.
Suppose I know what you ate.
I still cannot come to an opinion about how adequately you ate without thinking about your needs.
Economists know need is influenced by economies of scale (bigger households are more efficient) and by age (bigger people need more). You need more food if you do harder physical work, and if it’s colder. One of the strangest errors of economists is in using per capita statistics for countries known to have falling proportions of children.
Another part of the economist’s problem in relation to needs and food is this:
Suppose I know about
a) relevant food prices (which are necessarily a bit subjective) and
b) food needs (ditto).
I still don’t know
c) how much money was left over for food after other expenses.
Other expenses include rent, transport to work, and anything else which may vary across places, times, policies or circumstances.
In real countries, a sensible thought might be that a lot of people have moved to cities and now need to pay rent.
If the economist doesn’t think about this, then for this reason if for no other, the claim to have measured poverty would seem to be false.
This raises philosophical questions about what kinds of expenses are necessary in different circumstances. If poverty depends on both resources and need, and need is subjective, what does that make poverty?
But even if needs were measurable in principle, the question of whether they are measurable in practice remains.
Even if we also ignore other aspects of economic gains and losses (assets, debts, communal assets, environmental assets) the following would still be true:
The tradition in economics, in the largest studies reported in newspapers about global poverty, is of failing to take account of either the cost of dying or cost of living.
One line of argument which might be used is that in some time periods life length increases while birth rates fall, so while economists using the traditional methods, other things being equal, underestimate gains in “welfare” by omitting life length, they overestimate them at the country level by using per capita statistics and thereby counting today’s adults as needing the same as yesterday’s children. It is not clear how the two might be compared.
Above note added to mattberkley.com/economist.htm 3 January 2006.
[I explained the mortality error to Carol Howard of The Economist in a telephone call and email of 2002.]
.................................................................
Complaints of 2013 to The Economist
The original complaint covered other issues in The Economist's coverage of global poverty research and goals.
Here the author made the same error as the Economist, confusing the pledge with the MDGs: "The same article states "the heads of 147 governments pledged that they would halve the proportion of people on the Earth...". It is in fact the proportion of people in "developing" countries."
He explained his error in what became the main complaint document.
In the main complaint document, the author detailed dozens of problems in the magazine's reporting on global poverty research and goals. He wrongly quoted the magazine several times as saying progress was impressive "by any measure" when it actually said, as he quoted elsewhere, "by almost any measure".
He also wrongly assumed that the Economist had printed letters critical of its coverage, when in fact these were online only.
The then editor of The Economist, John Micklethwait, responded via the Press Complaints Commission, but not to the main complaint document. He instead replied to an early, unapproved draft summary by a Commission staff member of the previous version. He did so despite the complainant clearly indicating that the staff member's draft needed "clarification".
Mr Micklethwait did not answer the multiple instances of complaints about the Economist's treatment of the baseline, despite a reminder after he omitted them the first time.
The PCC supplied a bizarre reply including the following argument:
- that The Economist had not breached its Code on its treatment of targets, because the MDGs were set in 2000.
The PCC was repeating one of the Economist's false statements.