The best stats I have seen of late

Economics Economics Questions
1

Hi Guys,

While wandering around the internets I came across this…

This is fucking awesome, some of the best stats I have seen in sometime, with some of the best comments overlaid.

These statistics show that the better the economy, the healthier the people, the faster their economies improved, the faster their health improved. (Look at the rate of change, not where they started from)

It also shows that no one can classify any one country by any blanket policies, you could make a policy about AIDS cover for a country, but you wouldn’t be taking into account a large portion of the other people in the country (and this isn’t even taking into account the bad reprecussions from that policy).

Additionally it showed the changes in economy, have a look at the comparison between South Korea and China in the changes in health. Then compare the deregulation of China (relatively) versus its increase in income across the entire country.

I find this means 3 things:

  1. Total surplus (excluding government surplus) really is a good indicator of how well a country is doing prosperity/health/economic wise.

  2. The freer the economy the faster it will be better.

  3. Policy is being directed by people without good information, and the way to change peoples perception on the role and affects of government is to gather data and display it well.

I believe this entire thing only further backs up an argument against Government and for the Economy, and could be used by us in our day to day arguments. Perhaps this is something Austrian economists should be looking at producing, as a way of getting their message out there. Collect good data, and represent it better. I know I’ve found most of the data I have come across wasn’t very well represented and it basically took lots of simulations in my mind, to try and figure things out, to understand even the most basic of Austrian economic theory (or ideology as it may well be).

What does everyone else think?

Has anyone else found some awesome stats that are represented well?

Thanks,

Uriah

2

That’s some pretty good stuff, but I’m afraid no matter how well presented the data is, or how many variables they have, it will never be accurate enough to enable us to build theories based on it.

At best, these statistical presentations let us get a better picture of where we’re at, and can serve to test a priori theories, but correlations should never be the start of a theory. We saw how well that went with the philips curve.

Anyway, that was just a note of warning :stuck_out_tongue: Thanks for the link :slight_smile:

3

Yeah, I don’t mean to say this data could be used to develop theories, but it could be used to check and to show how people are changing over time, and possibly link changes to results.

For instance, I think the 3 things I said above are correct.

4

Yeh I agree :slight_smile:

5

Yes, I recall watching this lecture some time ago – incredibly well presented. I agree that it is no substitute for economic theory. The causation at work here is very vague. For example, one might get the impression that small families causes prosperity, that the most urgent task for poor countries is to control birth rates. Also not addressed is what accounts for low birth rates in developed countries: social security, public schooling, high taxes, and much else, might actually contribute to smaller families.

By the way, did you notice his passing reference to good health in Cuba? This is what happens when you believe the data instead of your own eyes.

6

Testing it is the positivist model anyway. What you might mean is retroactive control over the axioms and subsidiary postulates, e.g. if a theorist made a mistake in specifying something as an axiom, or if they missed something out. Repeated failure to interpret a phenomenon might hint at such a thing. Otherwise I agree.

-Jon

7

Everything I’ve heard on the subject says that they have a good health care system in Cuba. Been hearing this for years.

They export doctors to other countries in trade for oil subsidies and such.