The tyranny of international index rankings

Bjørn Høyland, Karl Ove Moene and Fredrik Willumsen

Journal of Development Economics, 2012, vol. 97, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: International index rankings are popular, but perhaps too persuasive. They emphasize country differences where similarity is the dominant feature. Rankings based on Doing Business, the Human Development Index and Freedom House can be misleading, not because of wrong indicators, but because the estimation of the scores ignores inherent uncertainty. Re-estimated with a method that captures this uncertainty, it becomes clear that ranking every adjacent country is a rather courageous activity.

Keywords: International indexes; Ranking; Latent variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 H77 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:97:y:2012:i:1:p:1-14

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2011.01.007

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