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Measuring Customer Service Effectiveness
by Sarah CookGood customer service may be seen as a crucial asset for most organisations. But how do you know that you are delivering good customer service both externally and internally and, more importantly, delivering it to meet and exceed your customers' expectations? Customer service is an intangible thing, it is perishable and it is personal, so measuring it can be complicated and less than straightforward. Help is at hand. Sarah Cook's down-to-earth guide provides the rationale behind measuring service effectiveness externally and internally and explains the measurement process, from preparation to managing the results. The book also includes an exploration of the various techniques open for measuring effectiveness and how to use them. Utilising her consultancy experiences the author has ensured that there is plenty of ready-to-use materials to enable you to start measuring your own organisation's service effectiveness straight away.
Measuring Development: An Inequality Dominance Approach (Themes in Economics)
by Asis Kumar BanerjeeThis book discusses how to measure the level of development of an economy, particularly, the task of ranking economies in terms of their development. In this context, development is defined as an increase in people’s level of wellbeing. The book emphasises that wellbeing is a multidimensional concept, and that it is important to ask how equitably the fruits of development are distributed, and as such it focuses on multidimensional, inequality-sensitive development ranking. Rather than using various specific development indices, which would lead to different development rankings for a country, the book proposes a dominance approach, which formulates conditions under which two economies can be ranked unambiguously, making it valid for all reasonable development indices. With the help of illustrative examples using real-world data, it demonstrates that such unambiguous rankings are possible, and that the proposed approach can be used to complement traditional approaches. An invaluable resource for researchers working in the field of development, the book will also appeal to practitioners engaged in measuring development.An excerpt from the book's Foreword:"[This book] is a comprehensive and valuable contribution to the literature on the measurement of inequality and the use of such measurement in the assessment of social welfare. I believe that it will be of much interest to researchers working on measures of inequality and social welfare as well as advanced graduate students who are looking for a solid introduction to this important area of normative economics."- Prof. Prasanta K. Pattanaik, University of California, Riverside, California, U.S.A.
Measuring Development: the Role and Adequacy of Development Indicators
by Nancy BasterFirst published in 1972. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth: Studies in Income and Wealth (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)
by Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Janet C. Gornick, Barry Johnson and Arthur KennickellA collection of twenty-three studies that explore the latest developments in the analysis of income and wealth distribution and mobility. Economic research is increasingly focused on inequality in the distribution of personal resources and outcomes. One aspect of inequality is mobility: are individuals locked into their respective places in this distribution? To what extent do circumstances change, either over the lifecycle or across generations? Research not only measures inequality and mobility, but also analyzes the historical, economic, and social determinants of these outcomes and the effect of public policies. This volume explores the latest developments in the analysis of income and wealth distribution and mobility. The collection of twenty-three studies is divided into five sections. The first examines observed patterns of income inequality and shifts in the distribution of earnings and in other factors that contribute to it. The next examines wealth inequality, including a substantial discussion of the difficulties of defining and measuring wealth. The third section presents new evidence on the intergenerational transmission of inequality and the mechanisms that underlie it. The next section considers the impact of various policy interventions that are directed at reducing inequality. The final section addresses the challenges of combining household-level data, potentially from multiple sources such as surveys and administrative records, and aggregate data to study inequality, and explores ways to make survey data more comparable with national income accounts data.
Measuring EU Inflation: The Foundations of the HICP
by John AstinThe HICP is a consumer price index which was designed to provide measures of inflation in EU member states calculated using similar methods and thus comparable one with another. The HICP now tracks the inflation rates covering over 500 million Europeans, including the UK, and is also produced by other countries such as the USA. John Astin was the EU statistician in charge of the initial development of this important index and he has the best knowledge of how it was developed in the 1990s. This book is a history of the main development period of the HICP, up to the year 2002 when Astin left the European Commission. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers, not only in the UK but globally. Types of readers are likely to include: economists, economic statisticians, national statistics offices, universities, libraries, government finance/economic ministries, international organizations such as UN, ILO, OECD, EU, Eurostat, ECB, and central banks, as well as individuals who are interested in the construction of consumer price indices. This book begins by explaining the background to the HICP project, both from an economic and a political viewpoint, and describes the specific needs for harmonized price indices resulting from the Maastricht treaty of 1992. It analyses the process of establishing the necessary procedures for taking this urgent work forward and gives details of the technical issues involved, and the critical issue of drafting legal acts which would be necessary to ensure full compliance with the new rules. It includes analysis of products, price collection issues, quality adjustment, timing, and a host of other issues, and discusses the arguments which had to be resolved, as well as some human aspects of the process too. It also looks at the funding aspects, the recruitment of specialist consultants, the legal processes and the organization of meetings, both in Luxembourg and in other countries.
Measuring Economic Sustainability and Progress
by Dale W. Jorgenson J. Steven Landefeld Paul SchreyerSince the Great Depression, researchers and statisticians have recognized the need for more extensive methods for measuring economic growth and sustainability. The recent recession renewed commitments to closing long-standing gaps in economic measurement, including those related to sustainability and well-being. The latest in the NBER's influential Studies in Income and Wealth series, which has played a key role in the development of national account statistics in the United States and other nations, this volume explores collaborative solutions between academics, policy researchers, and official statisticians to some of today's most important economic measurement challenges. Contributors to this volume extend past research on the integration and extension of national accounts to establish an even more comprehensive understanding of the distribution of economic growth and its impact on well-being, including health, human capital, and the environment. The research contributions assess, among other topics, specific conceptual and empirical proposals for extending national accounts.
Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges
by Antoinette Schoar John Haltiwanger Erik Hurst Javier MirandaStart-ups and other entrepreneurial ventures make a significant contribution to the US economy, particularly in the tech sector, where they comprise some of the largest and most influential companies. Yet for every high-profile, high-growth company like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google, many more fail. This enormous heterogeneity poses conceptual and measurement challenges for economists concerned with understanding their precise impact on economic growth. Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses brings together economists and data analysts to discuss the most recent research covering three broad themes. The first chapters isolate high- and low-performing entrepreneurial ventures and analyze their roles in creating jobs and driving innovation and productivity. The next chapters turn the focus on specific challenges entrepreneurs face and how they have varied over time, including over business cycles. The final chapters explore core measurement issues, with a focus on new data projects under development that may improve our understanding of this dynamic part of the economy.
Measuring Gender Equality: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Some EU Countries (Social Indicators Research Series #87)
by Christian Suter Pedro López-Roldán Sandra Fachelli Enrico Di BellaIn this open access book, the editors explicitly address the issue of measuring gender equality. The book introduces readers to basic concepts of gender equality, equity and equal opportunities, then discusses measuring these phenomena, the methods of constructing indicators, and reviews the main indicators that have been proposed at the international level to measure gender equality. It then sets the theoretical discussions against the findings from a Jean Monnet project financed by the European Union to highlight the importance of a regional analysis of gender equality in four main study areas: Italy, Spain, France and Germany. The results make it clear that it is necessary to move from the purely national perspective hitherto used in gender equality analyses to a regional one because differences can be highly pronounced even within the same country. This is a self-contained volume requiring limited statistical expertise for the reader and is aimed at social researchers and policymakers who wish to address gender equality from a quantitative perspective.
Measuring Gender Equality: Streamlined Analysis with ADePT Software
by Zurab Sajaia Josefina Posadas Lokshin Pierella PaciGender equality is a core development objective in its own right and also smart development policy and business practice. No society can develop sustainably without giving men and women equal power to shape their own lives and contribute to their families, communities, and countries. And yet, critical gender gaps continue to exist in all countries and across multiple dimensions. The gender module of the World Bank’s ADePT software platform produces a comprehensive set of tables and graphs using household surveys to help diagnose and analyze the prevailing gender inequalities at the country level and over time. This book provides a step-by-step guide to the use of the ADePT software and an introduction to its basic economic concepts and econometric methods. The module is organized around the framework proposed by the World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development. It covers gender differences in outcomes in three primary dimensions of gender equality: human capital (or endowments), economic opportunities, and voice and agency. Particular focus is given to the analysis and decomposition techniques that allow for further exploring of gender gaps in economic opportunities.
Measuring Globalisation
by Pim Martens Axel Dreher Noel GastonGlobalisation is a timely and controversial topic. Against the chorus of globalisation's proponents and detractors, the authors propose an approach for measuring globalisation and its consequences. Undertaking a comprehensive review of the literature on globalisation and using data from the MGI and KOF indices, the well-respected authors build a framework for defining globalisation and analyzing the relationships among economic, political, and social variables.
Measuring Good Business: Making Sense of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Data
by Richard HardymentWhat's a good company? Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing is transforming the world of business and finance. Investors are using data on issues like climate and diversity to enhance returns and make an impact. But with scepticism creeping in, how far can we trust the numbers? Is all this data making a difference to people and planet, and have we actually lost sight of what we are measuring and why? Measuring Good Business explains what we can measure – and calls for honesty about what we can't.This is the first book to look at the numbers behind the ESG revolution. It sets out a bold blueprint to revolutionise the data based on bottom-up, inclusive metrics, customised data to meet investor needs and impact measures that put sustainability in context. It is essential reading for anyone creating, using or studying ESG and sustainability data. After unpacking what’s going on today, the book focuses on solutions, providing a how-to guide to improve measurement and make sustainable business more impactful. It shows why measurement matters in a highly accessible way through stories and insights based on practical experience.The book is relevant to a broad readership of data creators (e.g. those working in companies), users (e.g. capital market participants) as well as the large ecosystem of raters, rankers and standard setters across the private, public and non-profit worlds.
Measuring HR Alignment
by Dave Ulrich Brian E. Becker Mark A. HuselidAlignment, a word that seems to be on everyone's lips in the business world these days, requires that human resource and line managers develop a shared view of HR's role. This chapter introduces several different approaches to measuring your organization's alignment between the HR system that produces key HR deliverables and the requirements of the firm's strategy implementation system.
Measuring Happiness
by Ronnie Schöb Joachim Weimann Andreas KnabeCan money buy happiness? Is income a reliable measure for life satisfaction? In the West after World War II, happiness seemed inextricably connected to prosperity. Beginning in the 1960s, however, other values began to gain ground: peace, political participation, civil rights, environmentalism. "Happiness economics" -- a somewhat incongruous-sounding branch of what has been called "the dismal science" -- has taken up the puzzle of what makes people happy, conducting elaborate surveys in which people are asked to quantify their satisfaction with "life in general." In this book, three economists explore the happiness-prosperity connection, investigating how economists measure life satisfaction and well-being.The authors examine the evolution of happiness research, considering the famous "Easterlin Paradox," which found that people's average life satisfaction didn't seem to depend on their income. But they question whether happiness research can measure what needs to be measured. They argue that we should not assess people's well-being on a "happiness scale," because that necessarily obscures true social progress. Instead, rising income should be understood as increasing opportunities and alleviating scarcity. Economic growth helps societies to sustain freedom and to finance social welfare programs. In this respect, high income may not buy happiness with life in general, but it gives individuals the opportunity to be healthier, better educated, better clothed, and better fed, to live longer, and to live well.
Measuring Happiness: The Economics of Well-Being (The\mit Press Ser.)
by Joachim Weimann Andreas Knabe Ronnie SchobAn investigation of the happiness-prosperity connection and whether economists can measure well-being.Can money buy happiness? Is income a reliable measure for life satisfaction? In the West after World War II, happiness seemed inextricably connected to prosperity. Beginning in the 1960s, however, other values began to gain ground: peace, political participation, civil rights, environmentalism. “Happiness economics”—a somewhat incongruous-sounding branch of what has been called “the dismal science”—has taken up the puzzle of what makes people happy, conducting elaborate surveys in which people are asked to quantify their satisfaction with “life in general.” In this book, three economists explore the happiness-prosperity connection, investigating how economists measure life satisfaction and well-being.The authors examine the evolution of happiness research, considering the famous “Easterlin Paradox,” which found that people's average life satisfaction didn't seem to depend on their income. But they question whether happiness research can measure what needs to be measured. They argue that we should not assess people's well-being on a “happiness scale,” because that necessarily obscures true social progress. Instead, rising income should be understood as increasing opportunities and alleviating scarcity. Economic growth helps societies to sustain freedom and to finance social welfare programs. In this respect, high income may not buy happiness with life in general, but it gives individuals the opportunity to be healthier, better educated, better clothed, and better fed, to live longer, and to live well.
Measuring Illegal Border Crossing Between Ports of Entry
by Henry H. Willis Peter Brownell Andrew R. MorralThe U.S. Department of Homeland Security is responsible for controlling the flow of goods and people across the U.S. border, but compelling methods for producing estimates of the total flow of illicit goods or border crossings do not yet exist. This paper describes four innovative approaches to estimating the total flow of illicit border crossings between ports of entry. Each approach is sufficiently promising to warrant further attention.
Measuring Impact
by Sandra GattenhofThis book investigates the relationship developed between the researcher/evaluator and the commissioning arts and cultural producer in providing an opportunity to rethink the traditional process of reporting back on value and impact through the singular entity of funds acquittal. Using three commissioned evaluations as examples, the discussion outlines the two positions most often adopted by researchers/evaluators, external and distanced or embedded and collaborative, and will argue the merits and deficiencies of the two approaches. This text also investigates the role of the researcher/evaluator as a broker of stakeholder interests; how cultural organizations can partner in data gathering and develop a participatory approach to the research; what role the researcher/evaluator can have in the dissemination of evaluation findings and recommendations; and makes recommendations on which partnership type is more affective in a commissioned evaluation model for an arts and culture organization in the Australian landscape.
Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean
by Ricardo Paes de Barros Francisco H. G. Ferreira Jaime Saavedra Chanduvi Jose R. Molinas VegaEquality of opportunity is about leveling the playing field so that circumstances such as gender, ethnicity, place of birth, or family background do not influence a person's life chances. Success in life should depend on people's choices, effort and talents, not to their circumstances at birth. 'Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean' introduces new methods for measuring inequality of opportunities and makes an assessment of its evolution in Latin America over a decade. An innovative Human Opportunity Index and other parametric and non-parametric techniques are presented for quantifying inequality based on circumstances exogenous to individual efforts. These methods are applied to gauge inequality of opportunities in access to basic services for children, learning achievement for youth, and income and consumption for adults.
Measuring Inequality: A Methodological Handbook
by Philip B. CoulterA social science handbook that comprehensively covers distribution in social science, inequality theory and the importance of distribution.
Measuring Intangible Values: Rethinking How to Evaluate Socially Beneficial Actions (Routledge Studies in Sustainability)
by Marie Harder Gemma BurfordThis book explores the complex problem of how to measure the ‘success’ of social organisations, projects and activities. Whether improving a local situation, organizing a campaign around sustainability, or assessing the intangible effects of perceived social benefits, currently we have only have a very limited range of mechanisms for judging effectiveness. On the one hand, a market-driven logic demands that qualitative perceptions and experiences are quantified into simplified and numerically defined variables. On the other, community projects are left un-assessed, as one-off outcomes of local and situated processes that must somehow automatically ‘make things better’. For academics, researchers and other professionals working in this field this has resulted in the deep frustration of not being able to assess the things that are most centrally important: higher human values such as integrity, trust, respect, equality and social justice. Measuring Intangible Values argues that we can make shared social values – and their measurement - central to decisions about improving civil society. But because these social values are intangible, we need to develop ways of eliciting and validating them at the local level that can capture people’s shared meanings across multiple goals and perspectives. We need to develop mechanisms for evaluating whether these values are met that use rigorous but also relevant measures. And we need to develop ways of doing this that are scalable, transferable and comparable across different kinds of organisations and fields of activity. This book will be valuable for researchers in all social science disciplines which touch on human values, such as sociology, social psychology, human geography, social policy, architecture and planning, design and community studies.
Measuring Livelihoods and Environmental Dependence: Methods for Research and Fieldwork
by Arild Angelsen Helle Overgaard Larsen Jens Friis Lund Carsten Smith-Hall Sven WunderThousands of surveys on rural livelihoods in developing countries are being done every year. Unfortunately, many suffer from weaknesses in methods and problems in implementation. Quantifying households' dependence on multiple environmental resources (forests, bush, grasslands and rivers) is particularly difficult and often simply ignored in the surveys. The results therefore do not reflect rural realities. In particular, 'the hidden harvest' from natural resources is generally too important to livelihoods for development research, policies and practice to ignore. Fieldwork using state-of-the-art methods, and in particular well-designed household questionnaires, thus becomes an imperative to adequately capture key dimensions of rural welfare. This book describes how to do a better job when designing and implementing household and village surveys for quantitative assessment of rural livelihoods in developing countries. It covers the entire research process from planning to sharing research results. It draws on the experiences from a large global-comparative project, the Poverty Environment Network (PEN), to develop more robust and validated methods, enriched by numerous practical examples from the field. The book will provide an invaluable guide to methods and a practical handbook for students and professionals.
Measuring Marketing
by John A. DavisEvaluating marketing performance and decision making more fairly Marketing has long been considered an art and not a science, but that perception is beginning to change as increasingly sophisticated methods of quantifying marketing success are developed. In Measuring Marketing: 103 Key Metrics Every Marketer Needs, Second Edition, one of the world's leading experts in the field presents the key marketing ratios and metrics. Applying these metrics will enable marketers to make better decisions and increase their accountability for their strategies and activities. This fully revised and updated new edition discusses the key marketing metrics needed for successfully measuring the performance of an organization's marketing investments. CEOs and CFOs regularly ask for one simple way to assess the efficacy of marketing campaigns, but the fact is that there isn't one single measure of performance. Measuring Marketing helps marketers figure out what they can and should be measuring and when. Marketers are increasingly being held accountable for the corporate bottom line, and this book helps both marketers, as well as the business leaders who employ them, to measure performance fairly and accurately Measuring marketing success is difficult, but this book shows what and when to assess Designed to increase accountability and improve everyday decisions, the book includes ratios illustrated with actual marketing cases from leading companies The first book to address growing demands that marketers be accountable for their strategies and decisions, Measuring Marketing explains how to assess marketing success in more meaningful ways.
Measuring Multidimensional Poverty and Deprivation
by Roger WhiteThis edited collection provides a comprehensive examination of multidimensional poverty for a wide variety of economies and societies, with a general focus on multidimensional poverty in developed countries, where poverty is often overlooked. Arguing that income- and consumption-based poverty measures cannot provide a full picture of the presence and extent of poverty, the contributors suggest new ways to structure assessment indexes. Complementing the discussion of new rubrics, a series of single-country and comparative examples from Europe and the United States examine variation in multidimensional poverty incidence and the extent of deprivation. This combination of methodology and application will appeal to academics, researchers, and policymakers alike.
Measuring Mutual Fund Performance
by Andre F. Perold Markus F. MullarkeyExamines various approaches to measuring mutual fund performance. The approaches include the use of risk exposure and the Sharpe Ratio, as well as the Morningstar star system for rating mutual funds. Applies the approaches to a variety of mutual funds to demonstrate the effect of using different metrics to measure fund performance.
Measuring National Income in the Centrally Planned Economies: Why the West Underestimated the Transition to Capitalism (Routledge Studies in the Modern World Economy)
by William JefferiesIn 1991 "Communism" collapsed. The cold war was over and the West had won. Whole cities, Moscow, St Petersburg, Warsaw, Beijing, Budapest and Bucharest, whole countries indeed, were privatised for nothing or next to nothing. This was probably the greatest expansion of the world market in history. And yet, according to national income measurements of the CIA, OECD, World Bank and IMF, this gigantic expansion of market production, led to a decline in market production in the very countries where it was introduced. How to explain this paradox? This book traces the origin of the West’s national income measurements, from their origin in the 1923/4 Balance developed in the USSR, to the USA in the early 1930s via two Soviet exiles, Simon Kuznets and Wassily Leontief, and then back to the USSR again, after a vigorous debate, through a protégé of Kuznets, Abram Bergson. The AFC imputed national incomes to a centrally planned economy, based on physical not income measurements. This book provides a detailed assessment of the failure of the AFC method to measure the real growth of actual market production during the transition period. This book provides a detailed account of the application of national income measurements to the centrally planned economies. It assesses all of the major contributors to this debate, including Colin Clark, Naum Jasny, Alexander Gerschenkron, G.Warren Nutter and Abram Bergson. It provides a new much higher, estimate of the expansion of market production during the transition period, based on an estimate of the actual growth of real market production. It discusses the very significant implications of this re-estimate for contemporary theories of globalisation.
Measuring National Innovation Performance
by Frane AdamThis book provides a critical re-examination of the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS) as the main tool used by the European Commission and other policy-making bodies to measure national innovation capacity. Given that contemporary societies and economies are to a great extent characterised by the processes of production, dissemination and application (re-combination) of knowledge, the accurate monitoring and measurement of R&D efficiency and innovation performance on national, regional and firm level are of outmost importance. The contextual reconstruction of the model of indicators used by IUS reveals that the accuracy and validity of measurement are not satisfactory, and that substantial modifications of metrics are needed to achieve stronger theoretical significance and policy-relevance. In this work, the »epistemic turn« is emphasised and offered as an alternative, namely in the sense of the shift from a mechanicist-positivist orientation toward a more reflective and contextual post-positivist approach.