Publication: On Measuring Aggregate "Social Efficiency"
Date
2003-11
ISSN
Published
2003-11
Author(s)
Abstract
Cross-country comparisons of social
indicators controlling for income and/or social spending
have been widely used to measure and explain "social
efficiency" analogously to "technical
efficiency" in production. The author argues that these
methods are clouded in ambiguities about what exactly is
being measured. Standard methods of measuring technical
efficiency require assumptions that seem unlikely to hold
for social indicators. In the context of a simple parametric
model of life expectancy, conditions are identified under
which there will be a systematic pattern of bias in
estimates of efficient health spending.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Ravallion, Martin. 2003. On Measuring Aggregate "Social Efficiency". Policy Research Working Paper;No. 3166. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17903 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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