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I share the author's aversion to reducing complex information to rankings. At the same time, at first reflection it seems that countries would have less incenti
by Jongseong 13y ago
I share the author's aversion to reducing complex information to rankings. At the same time, at first reflection it seems that countries would have less incentives than universities to "juke their stats" (to use the expression in the article). Of course, economic indicators, crime statistics and the like are liable to be fudged for political purposes, but my impression is that countries don't compete with each other on rankings the way universities do.
- rollo_tommasi 13y agoWhile I can't say whether this is true on a larger scale, you may be interested to learn that Paul Kagame, the ruler of Rwanda, put together a team specifically for the purpose of maximizing his country's ranking on the World Bank's ease-of-doing-business index. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/paul-kagame-rwanda.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/paul-kagame-rwand...
- Jongseong 13y agoThat's a great example. I just hope that at least the changes they made to maximize Rwanda's ranking on the ease-of-doing-business index were genuinely beneficial rather than merely cosmetic.