Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MAKSWELL (MAKing Sustainable development and WELL-being frameworks work for policy analysis)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2019-05-01 do 2020-10-31
During the last decades hundreds of initiatives have been developed all over the world in order to propose innovative frameworks able to move in “beyond GDP” perspective. Concepts as social indicators, basic needs, human development, sustainable development, quality of life or societal progress have been at the centre of the debate for enhancing the use of economic, social and environmental indicators. Milestones of this debate have been the Human Development Reports and the so-called Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report. One of the major themes contained in it was to encourage the use of new well‐being metrics in policy decisions in order to move beyond identifying “problems” as well as to anchor well‐being metrics in the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies. Different activities were implemented within the European Statistical System and several NSIs have started to publish SDG indicators as required for the implementation of the Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development. Although these experiences shared a common framework background, a complete integration was lacking, making it difficult to carry out comparisons and to read the information on a similar scale from local to national and European level. These different initiatives are hardly linked with a policy agenda with very few exceptions. In this context MAKSWELL project worked to extend and harmonise the indicators able to capture the main characteristics of the beyond-GDP approach proposing a new framework that includes them in the evaluation of the public policies. The work carried out has described the state of the art on relevant dimensions of sustainable development and on vulnerabilities of society. Analysis has investigated statistical methodologies for the use of new data sources and for measuring poverty and inequality at regional level; developed a framework for assessing survey discontinuity; extended macroeconomic models to well-being and SDGs variables; provided evidence on the use of well-being and SDGs frameworks in Italy and Hungary. The final aim was to improve data and information for policy making and provide suggestions and best practices for a better design of future research. At the conclusion of this action, MAKSWELL project confirms that when the statistical community, the academic community and other civil society stakeholders work together for a common goal, the outcome can be impressive.
"Starting from the analysis of the frameworks on well-being applied in the European countries and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the work was extended with an inventory of all SDG indicators that are currently published, their data sources, frequency, regional level, and potential alternative data sources. The purpose was to illustrate how non-traditional data sources can be used for the production of SDG indicators as a primary data source or in combination with survey data. Analysis has described methods to combine probability data with non-traditional data sources, either using them as an auxiliary indicator for small area estimation or exploring their power to improve timeliness for short-term indicators with the use of time series methods.
The improvement of well-being and SDGs indicators with time series and multivariate methodology including nowcasting was brought further. The estimation of survey discontinuities was investigated when different sources of data need to be joined or when there is a break in the survey. Moreover, analysis investigated the existing framework for policy analysis such as the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure indicators suggesting its use also for well-being evolutions across countries.
Analysis highlighted that the inclusion of new data sources into the measurement of poverty and well-being may help to enrich or improve current best practices in this area. Starting with a review of different indicators used around the world it was proposed an overview of design-based, model-assisted and model-based estimation methods for such indicators, followed by a description of data sets in use for the estimation. Analysis focused on some important aspects related to the use of remote sensing data to improve spatial resolution of well-being and poverty indicators. This use of images for the measurement of SDG areas represents a newer development that was investigated.
The challenge of the implementation of well-being and SDG indicators into the policy debate was tackled along two different dimensions. The first refers to a structural macroeconometric model. The second focuses on the comparison between two countries, Hungary and Italy. Current solutions and further needs for developing a policy support framework in ""Beyond GDP"" perspective have been highlighted at different territorial levels allowing to collect insights and evidence that can provide useful hints to other countries in Europe. The project released also a “reflection paper” containing some recommendations on research needs to support the planning of the main themes of the next EU 9th Framework Programme. Several dissemination and communication activities went on in line with the communication tools already set-up i.e. the website and brochure and the social media channel through its Twitter account. Three project’s workshops were organised that were an important opportunity to disseminate the research results of the project but also to present other on-going EU-wide research activities related to MAKSWELL themes. The Final Conference took place as virtual event in the light of Coronavirus pandemic. The focus was on the use of new data sources and statistical methodologies for improving and extending the measurement frameworks for well-being and sustainability and the way forward to deepen their use for policymaking."
The improvement of well-being and SDGs indicators with time series and multivariate methodology including nowcasting was brought further. The estimation of survey discontinuities was investigated when different sources of data need to be joined or when there is a break in the survey. Moreover, analysis investigated the existing framework for policy analysis such as the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure indicators suggesting its use also for well-being evolutions across countries.
Analysis highlighted that the inclusion of new data sources into the measurement of poverty and well-being may help to enrich or improve current best practices in this area. Starting with a review of different indicators used around the world it was proposed an overview of design-based, model-assisted and model-based estimation methods for such indicators, followed by a description of data sets in use for the estimation. Analysis focused on some important aspects related to the use of remote sensing data to improve spatial resolution of well-being and poverty indicators. This use of images for the measurement of SDG areas represents a newer development that was investigated.
The challenge of the implementation of well-being and SDG indicators into the policy debate was tackled along two different dimensions. The first refers to a structural macroeconometric model. The second focuses on the comparison between two countries, Hungary and Italy. Current solutions and further needs for developing a policy support framework in ""Beyond GDP"" perspective have been highlighted at different territorial levels allowing to collect insights and evidence that can provide useful hints to other countries in Europe. The project released also a “reflection paper” containing some recommendations on research needs to support the planning of the main themes of the next EU 9th Framework Programme. Several dissemination and communication activities went on in line with the communication tools already set-up i.e. the website and brochure and the social media channel through its Twitter account. Three project’s workshops were organised that were an important opportunity to disseminate the research results of the project but also to present other on-going EU-wide research activities related to MAKSWELL themes. The Final Conference took place as virtual event in the light of Coronavirus pandemic. The focus was on the use of new data sources and statistical methodologies for improving and extending the measurement frameworks for well-being and sustainability and the way forward to deepen their use for policymaking."
As MAKSWELL documented, frameworks on well-being and SDGs are commonly used across European Countries. This implies that the first stage of the beyond-GDP revolution, the availability of indicators out of the boundaries of GDP, is now completed. Some difficulties emerge in the other stages mainly related to the timeliness of the indicators - a crucial point in the age of COVID-19 - to the search for a metric in the well-being, and in the use of the indicators in the policy debate.
MAKSWELL tried to answer these questions exploring new sources of data such as big data or already available sources providing a different interpretation in term of well-being or SDGs. At the same time, the project has presented methodogical advancements in considering these new sources or addressing timeliness and the presence of discontinuity. Statistical methodologies for measuring poverty and inequality at regional level were developed and exploited the differences in the government of the policy cycle on well-being and SDG across Hungary and Italy, searching for good practices.
MAKSWELL has contributed to create a shared knowledge, built up by its actors through collaboration and reciprocal influence. It may be considered as a valid model for common research under the forthcoming Ninth Framework Programme.
We hope that all results presented could be useful to improve the consideration on the use of well-being and SDG indicators into the policy debate. More effort is needed to answer to this big challenge but we hope that in the near future we could ‘bridge the divide that separates policy-makers and ordinary people today’ (Stiglitz et al. 2018b).
MAKSWELL tried to answer these questions exploring new sources of data such as big data or already available sources providing a different interpretation in term of well-being or SDGs. At the same time, the project has presented methodogical advancements in considering these new sources or addressing timeliness and the presence of discontinuity. Statistical methodologies for measuring poverty and inequality at regional level were developed and exploited the differences in the government of the policy cycle on well-being and SDG across Hungary and Italy, searching for good practices.
MAKSWELL has contributed to create a shared knowledge, built up by its actors through collaboration and reciprocal influence. It may be considered as a valid model for common research under the forthcoming Ninth Framework Programme.
We hope that all results presented could be useful to improve the consideration on the use of well-being and SDG indicators into the policy debate. More effort is needed to answer to this big challenge but we hope that in the near future we could ‘bridge the divide that separates policy-makers and ordinary people today’ (Stiglitz et al. 2018b).