IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v42y2006i3p469-489.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A statistical approach to identifying poorly performing countries

Author

Listed:
  • Edward Anderson
  • Oliver Morrissey

Abstract

This paper asks whether it is possible to identify, using purely statistical criteria on widely available quantitative data, a set of developing countries that can be classified as poor performers. We restrict attention to two performance indicators, economic growth and infant mortality, over two periods 1980-90 and 1990-2000, and use four different statistical criteria to identify poor performance. The main finding is that very few countries consistently appear as poor performers: those that perform poorly on one indicator, or in one period, typically do not perform poorly on/in the other. A similar result is obtained in the context of identifying, on statistical grounds, good performers. The research cautions against labelling countries as poor performers without careful qualification.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward Anderson & Oliver Morrissey, 2006. "A statistical approach to identifying poorly performing countries," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 469-489.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:42:y:2006:i:3:p:469-489
    DOI: 10.1080/00220380600576375
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380600576375
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220380600576375?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan Willem Gunning & Paul Collier, 1999. "Explaining African Economic Performance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 64-111, March.
    2. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    3. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    4. World Bank, 2002. "World Development Indicators 2002," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13921.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matt Andrews & Roger Hay & Jerrett Myers, 2010. "Governance Indicators Can Make Sense: Under-five Mortality Rates are an Example," CID Working Papers 207, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    2. Moore, Winston & Iyare, Osaretin, 2007. "A Simple Approach for Identifying Underperforming Schools," MPRA Paper 21471, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Maria Lo Bue & Stephan Klasen, 2013. "Identifying Synergies and Complementarities Between MDGs: Results from Cluster Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(2), pages 647-670, September.
    4. Andrews, Matthew R. & Hay, Roger & Myers, Jerrett, 2010. "Governance Indicators Can Make Sense: Under-five Mortality Rates are an Example," Scholarly Articles 4448994, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Matt Andrews & Roger Hay & Jerrett Myers, 2010. "Can Governance Indicators Make Sense? Towards a New Approach to Sector-Specific Measures of Governance," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 391-410.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lahimer, Noomen, 2009. "La contribution des investissements directs étrangers à la réduction de la pauvreté en Afrique subsaharienne," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/1167 edited by Goaied, Mohamed & Bienaymé, Alain.
    2. Mr. Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2005. "Growth Empirics Under Model Uncertainty: Is Africa Different?," IMF Working Papers 2005/018, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Eric Akobeng, 2017. "Gross Capital Formation, Institutions and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 136-164, April.
    4. Paap, Richard & Franses, Philip Hans & van Dijk, Dick, 2005. "Does Africa grow slower than Asia, Latin America and the Middle East? Evidence from a new data-based classification method," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 553-570, August.
    5. Céline Azemar & Grégory Corcos & Andrew Delios, 2006. "Taxation and the international strategy of Japanese multinational enterprises," Working Papers halshs-00590421, HAL.
    6. Jo Thori Lind & Karl Moene, 2011. "Miserly Developments," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(9), pages 1332-1352, June.
    7. John McArthur & Francis Teal, 2002. "Corruption and firm performance in Africa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2002-10, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    8. Nalan Basturk & Richard Paap & Dick van Dijk, 2008. "Structural Differences in Economic Growth," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-085/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Diao, Xinshen & Hazell, Peter & Resnick, Danielle & Thurlow, James, 2006. "The role of agriculture in development: implications for Sub-Saharan Africa," DSGD discussion papers 29, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Olivier Parent & Abdallah Zouache, 2009. "Geographical Features vs. Institutional Factors: New Perspectives on The Growth of Africa and Middle-East," Working Papers 490, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2009.
    11. Miguel, Ted, 1999. "Ethnic diversity, mobility and school funding: theory and evidence from Kenya," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6675, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Cunado, J. & Perez de Gracia, F., 2006. "Real convergence in Africa in the second-half of the 20th century," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 153-167.
    13. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    14. Dawson, Andrew, 2013. "The Social Determinants of the Rule of Law: A Comparison of Jamaica and Barbados," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 314-324.
    15. BARRIOS, Salvador & BERTINELLI, Luisito & STROBL, Eric, 2003. "Dry times in Africa: Rainfall and Africa's growth performance," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003061, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    16. Eiji Yamamura, 2012. "Effect of Linguistic Heterogeneity on Technology Transfer: An Economic Study of FIFA Football Rankings," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 40(1), pages 85-99, March.
    17. Fenske, James, 2010. "Institutions in African history and development: A review essay," MPRA Paper 23120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Cook, Paul & Uchida, Yuichiro, 2008. "Structural change, competition and income distribution," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 274-286, May.
    19. Sundar Ponnusamy & Mohammad Abbas Hakeem, 2024. "Ethnic inequality and public health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 41-58, January.
    20. Asiedu, Elizabeth, 2002. "On the Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment to Developing Countries: Is Africa Different?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 107-119, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:42:y:2006:i:3:p:469-489. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.