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Measuring Research and Development Expenditures IN THE U.S. ECONOMY
by Panel On Research Development Statistics at the National Science FoundationThis report examines the portfolio of research and development (R&D) expenditure surveys at the National Science Foundation (NSF), identifying gaps and weaknesses and areas of missing coverage. The report takes an in-depth look at the definition of R&D, the needs and potential uses of NSF’s R&D data by a variety of users, the goals of an integrated system of surveys and other data collection activities, and the quality of the data collected in the existing Science Resources Statistics surveys.
Measuring Service Performance: Practical Research for Better Quality
by Ralf LischIn service societies, the tertiary sector has long become the primary sector in terms of GDP and employment. Quality research and testing means better service, and success in the service industries demands quality. Nonetheless, complaints about insufficient, inconsistent or bad service abound. Quality decides on success and failure. Where so much is at stake, management decisions call for systematic research and consumers look for relevant results that provide guidance in complex markets. Research into quality and customer satisfaction gets to the core of a business. However, many so-called studies hardly meet essential criteria of empirical research and deliver artefacts rather than facts. This book puts an end to common misconceptions of quality studies. Measuring Service Performance is an appeal for an approach to quality research that meets quality criteria itself. It is a compelling argument against widespread but rather dubious dealings with measurement, data and statistics. Ralf Lisch calls for a reconsideration of the research process, focussing on content instead of method and adding meaning to results. Because service excellence deserves research excellence. Written in a practical, accessible style, the book offers practitioners as well as market researchers, MBA students and others involved in the service sector a critical analysis and discussion of the essentials of 'Practical Research for Better Quality'.
Measuring Social Change: Performance and Accountability in a Complex World
by Alnoor EbrahimThe social sector is undergoing a major transformation. We are witnessing an explosion in efforts to deliver social change, a burgeoning impact investing industry, and an unprecedented intergenerational transfer of wealth. Yet we live in a world of rapidly rising inequality, where social sector services are unable to keep up with societal need, and governments are stretched beyond their means. Alnoor Ebrahim addresses one of the fundamental dilemmas facing leaders as they navigate this uncertain terrain: performance measurement. How can they track performance towards worthy goals such as reducing poverty, improving public health, or advancing human rights? What results can they reasonably measure and legitimately take credit for? This book tackles three core challenges of performance faced by social enterprises and nonprofit organizations alike: what to measure, what kinds of performance systems to build, and how to align multiple demands for accountability. It lays out four different types of strategies for managers to consider—niche, integrated, emergent, and ecosystem—and details the types of performance measurement and accountability systems best suited to each. Finally, this book examines the roles of funders such as impact investors, philanthropic foundations, and international aid agencies, laying out how they can best enable meaningful performance measurement.
Measuring Sustainability and CSR: From Reporting to Decision-Making (Ethical Economy #64)
by Kristian J. Sund Johannes Kabderian Dreyer Slobodan KacanskiThis book discusses reliability and other related issues, such as reporting and decision-making, pertinent to sustainability and corporate responsibility reporting practices. Investors, governments, and NGOs expect businesses to report their environmental and social performance. This information is used to legislate, regulate industries, and guide the investment of billions of dollars through pensions and mutual funds. But can we trust these measurements? In order to answer this question, the editors and contributors, all academic thought leaders from a variety of fields, offer a set of reflections on problems that various stakeholders might be exposed to. These problems are mainly due to a lack of standardized reporting practices and guidelines, and inconsistencies in measurements used for the valuation of corporate sustainability performance indicators. This book is of great interest to students, scholars, and stakeholders to help comprehend the importance of accounting on sustainability practices for decision-making and measures therein, but also the reliability risks involved in these measurements. Thus, it moves away from simply pushing for more sustainability reporting towards a more critical discussion of measurement issues and potential consequences of the aforementioned problems to different fields such as finance, marketing, or strategy.
Measuring Sustainability: Learning From Doing
by Stephen Morse Simon Bell' Measuring the sustainability of development is crucial to achieving it, and is one of the most actively studied issues in the area. To date, most studies of measurements or indicators have been largely theoretical. However, this book, a follow-on to Bell and Morse's highly influential Sustainability Indicators (1999), presents valuable practical advice on how to develop measurements that will work in real-life development contexts. It describes and analyses how to derive, validate and apply indicators in the course of an actual development project - in this case the Mediterranean Action Plan in Malta. The authors explain the trade-offs and constraints involved and how it is possible to combine the open-ended and flexible perspectives of sustainability with the more linear processes and fixed targets of specific projects through the use of pragmatic and reflective methodologies.
Measuring Systemic Risk: A Probabilistic Perspective (Studies in Systems, Decision and Control #409)
by Deyan RadevThis book provides a comprehensive methodology to measure systemic risk in many of its facets and dimensions based on state-of-the-art risk assessment methods. Systemic risk has gained attention in the public eye since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The bankruptcy of the fourth-biggest bank in the USA raised questions whether banks that are allowed to become “too big to fail” and “too systemic to fail” should carry higher capital surcharges on their size and systemic importance. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 was followed by the Sovereign Debt Crisis in the euro area that saw the first Eurozone government de facto defaulting on its debt and prompted actions at international level to stem further domino and cascade effects to other Eurozone governments and banks. Against this backdrop, a careful measurement of systemic risk is of utmost importance for the new capital regulation to be successful and for sovereign risk to remain in check. Most importantly, the book introduces a number of systemic fragility indicators for banks and sovereigns that can help to assess systemic risk and the impact of macroprudential and microprudential policies.
Measuring Tomorrow: Accounting for Well-Being, Resilience, and Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century
by Éloi LaurentHow moving beyond GDP will improve well-being and sustainabilityNever before in human history have we produced so much data, and this empirical revolution has shaped economic research and policy profoundly. But are we measuring, and thus managing, the right things—those that will help us solve the real social, economic, political, and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century? In Measuring Tomorrow, Éloi Laurent argues that we need to move away from narrowly useful metrics such as gross domestic product and instead use broader ones that aim at well-being, resilience, and sustainability. By doing so, countries will be able to shift their focus away from infinite and unrealistic growth and toward social justice and quality of life for their citizens.The time has come for these broader metrics to become more than just descriptive, Laurent argues; applied carefully by private and public decision makers, they can foster genuine progress. He begins by taking stock of the booming field of well-being and sustainability indicators, and explains the insights that the best of these can offer. He then shows how these indicators can be used to develop new policies, from the local to the global.An essential resource for scholars, students, and policymakers, Measuring Tomorrow covers all aspects of well-being—including health, education, and the environment—and incorporates a broad range of data and fascinating case studies from around the world: not just the United States and Europe but also China, Africa, the Middle East, and India.
Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy: Studies in Income and Wealth (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report #73)
by Charles R. Hulten and Marshall B. ReinsdorfMore than half a decade has passed since the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In retrospect, what is surprising is that these events and their consequences came as such a surprise. What was it that prevented most of the world from recognizing the impending crisis and, looking ahead, what needs to be done to prevent something similar? Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy identifies measurement problems associated with the financial crisis and improvements in measurement that may prevent future crises, taking account of the dynamism of the financial marketplace in which measures that once worked well become misleading. In addition to advances in measuring financial activity, the contributors also investigate the effects of the crisis on households and nonfinancial businesses. They show that households’ experiences varied greatly and some even experienced gains in wealth, while nonfinancial businesses’ lack of access to credit in the recession may have been a more important factor than the effects of policies stimulating demand.
Measuring Welfare beyond Economics: The genuine progress of Hong Kong and Singapore (Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development)
by Claudio O. Delang Yi Hang YuDissatisfaction with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an indicator of a country’s development or a population’s wellbeing led to the development of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). The GPI is an aggregate index of over 20 economic, social and environmental indicators, and accounts for both the welfare benefits of economic growth, and the social and environmental costs which accompany that economic growth. The result is better information about the level of welfare or well-being of a country’s population. This book measures the GPI of Hong Kong and Singapore from 1968 to 2010. It finds that for both countries, economic output (as measured by the GDP) has grown more than welfare (as measured by the GPI), but important differences are also found. In Hong Kong, the GPI has grown for the whole period under consideration, while in Singapore the GPI has stalled from 1993. This is in line with most countries and is explained by the "threshold hypothesis" which states that beyond a certain level of economic development the benefits of further economic growth are outweighed by even higher environmental and social costs. The book argues that the growth of Hong Kong’s GPI is due to its favourable relationship with China and in particular its ability to export low-wage jobs and polluting industries, rather than successful domestic policies. A stalling or shrinking GPI calls for alternative policies than the growth economy promoted by neoclassical economists, and the book explores an alternative model, that of the Steady State Economy (SSE).
Measuring What We Spend
by Don A. DillmanThe Consumer Expenditure (CE) surveys are the only source of information on the complete range of consumers' expenditures and incomes in the United States, as well as the characteristics of those consumers. The CE consists of two separate surveys: (1) a national sample of households interviewed five times at three-month intervals; and (2) a separate national sample of households that complete two consecutive one-week expenditure diaries. For more than 40 years, these surveys, the responsibility of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), have been the principal source of knowledge about changing patterns of consumer spending in the U. S. population. In February 2009, BLS initiated the Gemini Project, the aim of which is to redesign the CE surveys to improve data quality through a verifiable reduction in measurement error with a particular focus on underreporting. The Gemini Project initiated a series of information-gathering meetings, conference sessions, forums, and workshops to identify appropriate strategies for improving CE data quality. As part of this effort, BLS requested the National Research Council's Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) to convene an expert panel to build on the Gemini Project by conducting further investigations and proposing redesign options for the CE surveys. The charge to the Panel on Redesigning the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys includes reviewing the output of a Gemini-convened data user needs forum and methods workshop and convening its own household survey producers workshop to obtain further input. In addition, the panel was tasked to commission options from contractors for consideration in recommending possible redesigns. The panel was further asked by BLS to create potential redesigns that would put a greater emphasis on proactive data collection to improve the measurement of consumer expenditures. Measuring What We Spend summarizes the deliberations and activities of the panel, discusses the conclusions about the uses of the CE surveys and why a redesign is needed, as well as recommendations for the future.
Measuring Your Company's Environmental Impact: Templates and Tools for a Complete ISO 14001 Initial Review
by Camilla Astrand Mats Zackrisson Gunnar BengtssonISO 14001 and EMAS (the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) requirements can be daunting for managers and expensive for companies. How to Measure your Company's Environmental Impact is the most cost-effective and easy-to-use environmental review solution for companies in all sectors of the economy. Designed and written by top environmental engineers, and used by top consultants and companies in Europe, this step-by-step manual contains extensive tools for managers to carry out a complete company-wide initial environmental review as a prerequisite for introducing an environmental management system in accordance with ISO 14001 or EMAS. Emphasis is placed on collecting and presenting quantitative data, starting with material and energy flows through the company. The manual provides indicators for energy, transportation and water use, against which to measure your company. The complimentary CD-ROM toolkit includes a template for the environmental review, an inventory tool designed to calculate emissions and the environmental impact of your company's transportation, energy consumption and other activities, and instructions and forms for an environmental failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) - a method for identifying and evaluating environmental impact to determine your company's most significant environmental aspects.
Measuring and Accounting for Environmental Public Goods: A National Accounts Perspective (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth)
by Nicholas Z. Muller, Eli P. Fenichel, and Mary BohmanProvides strategies and approaches for integrating natural capital into environmental statistics. While the importance of natural resources and the contributions of the environment to welfare are apparent, traditional national income and wealth accounting practices do not measure or value environmental public goods. This volume examines the conceptual and empirical basis for integrating natural capital—forests, oceans, and air—into the economic and environmental statistics that inform public policy. It offers innovative approaches to valuing nonmarket environmental goods and services, including strategies for capturing heterogeneity in measurement across types of capital, geography, and individuals. The chapters focus on measuring productivity with adjustments for pollution damage, developing a microdata infrastructure to advance our understanding of the distribution of environmental amenities and hazards, and estimating long-run sustainable development indicators. Case studies consider coastal assets, forests, and marine ecosystems, and develop strategies for implementing specific environmental-economic accounts such as environmental activity accounts and natural capital accounts for forests and the marine economy. As national income accounting standards are updated to incorporate expanded guidance on issues related to natural capital, this timely book will help inform decisions on the measurement and treatment of climate, air, water, and other public goods.
Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth)
by Carol Corrado, Jonathan Haskel, Javier Miranda and Daniel SichelMeasuring innovation is a challenging task, both for researchers and for national statisticians, and it is increasingly important in light of the ongoing digital revolution. National accounts and many other economic statistics were designed before the emergence of the digital economy and the growth in importance of intangible capital. They do not yet fully capture the wide range of innovative activity that is observed in modern economies. This volume examines how to measure innovation, track its effects on economic activity and on prices, and understand how it has changed the structure of production processes, labor markets, and organizational form and operation in business. The contributors explore new approaches to and data sources for measurement, such as collecting data for a particular innovation as opposed to a firm and using trademarks for tracking innovation. They also consider the connections between university-based R&D and business start-ups and the potential impacts of innovation on income distribution. The research suggests strategies for expanding current measurement frameworks to better capture innovative activity, including developing more detailed tracking of global value chains to identify innovation across time and space and expanding the measurement of innovation’s impacts on GDP in fields such as consumer content delivery and cloud computing.
Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth)
by Carol Corrado, Jonathan Haskel, Javier Miranda and Daniel SichelMeasuring innovation is a challenging task, both for researchers and for national statisticians, and it is increasingly important in light of the ongoing digital revolution. National accounts and many other economic statistics were designed before the emergence of the digital economy and the growth in importance of intangible capital. They do not yet fully capture the wide range of innovative activity that is observed in modern economies. This volume examines how to measure innovation, track its effects on economic activity and on prices, and understand how it has changed the structure of production processes, labor markets, and organizational form and operation in business. The contributors explore new approaches to and data sources for measurement, such as collecting data for a particular innovation as opposed to a firm and using trademarks for tracking innovation. They also consider the connections between university-based R&D and business start-ups and the potential impacts of innovation on income distribution. The research suggests strategies for expanding current measurement frameworks to better capture innovative activity, including developing more detailed tracking of global value chains to identify innovation across time and space and expanding the measurement of innovation’s impacts on GDP in fields such as consumer content delivery and cloud computing.
Measuring and Controlling Sustainability: Spanning Theory and Practice
by Bernhard Hirsch Adam Lindgreen Christine Vallaster Dr Shumaila YousofzaiEfforts to establish the measurement and control of sustainability have produced notable tools, but those instruments lack applicability in practice. Increasing the level of standardization of such tools also seems difficult to achieve, because the contexts surrounding the focal organizations differ considerably. Therefore, what we need is a systematic, interdisciplinary assessment of how to measure and control sustainability, so that we can establish an essential definition and up-to-date picture of the field. Measuring and Controlling Sustainability attempts to provide such an assessment in 17 chapters, organized into four main topic sections: (a) organizations and social value creation: concepts, responsibilities, and barriers; (b) accounting, measurement, performance, and diffusion of social value; (c) practical and managerial insights from real-life cases; and (d) choices, incentives, guidance, and ethics. This research anthology provides a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge theories and research that will further the development and advancement of measuring and controlling sustainable efforts in theory and managerial practice.
Measuring and Developing Professional Competences in COMET: Method Manual (Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects #33)
by Felix RaunerThis book is a detailed manual for the implementation of competence diagnostics in the field of vocational training. With the COMET competence model, both conceptual competences as well as practical skills are recorded and evaluated. The manual guides through all methodological steps, including the preparation and implementation of tests, cross and longitudinal studies, the development of context analyses and measurement methods for the test motivation. The focus of the final chapter is the application of the COMET procedure for the design, organisation and evaluation of vocational education and training processes.
Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability: Ethics in Sustainability Indexes (Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development)
by Sarah E. FredericksThe indexes used by local, national, and international governments to monitor progress toward sustainability do not adequately align with their ethical priorities and have a limited ability to monitor and promote sustainability. This book gives a theoretical and practical demonstration of how ethics and technical considerations can aid the development of sustainability indexes to overcome this division in the literature and aid sustainability initiatives. Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability develops and illustrates methods of linking technical and normative concerns during the development of sustainability indexes. Specifically, guidelines for index development are combined with a pragmatic theory of ethics that enables ethical collaboration among people of diverse ethical systems. Using the resulting method of index development, the book takes a unique applied turn as it ethically evaluates multiple sustainability indexes developed and used by the European Commission, researchers, and local communities and suggests ways to improve the indexes. The book emphasizes justice as it is the most prevalent ethical principle in the sustainability literature and most neglected in index development. In addition to the ethical principles common to international sustainability initiatives, the book also employs a variety of religious and philosophical traditions to ensure that the ethical evaluations performed in the text align with the ideals of the communities using the indexes and foster cross-cultural ethical dialogue. This volume is an invaluable resource for students, researchers and professionals working on sustainability indicators and sustainability policy-making as well as interdisciplinary areas including environmental ethics; environmental philosophy; environmental or social justice; ecological economics; businesses sustainability programs; international development and environmental policy-making.
Measuring and Improving Performance: Information Technology Applications in Lean Systems
by James William MartinAs a pioneer in Lean improvement methods, Jim Martin was among the first to suggest that truly successful Lean initiatives are those applied across every facet of an organization, not just on the shop floor. Building on this concept, Martin demonstrates that one of the most effective ways to implement operational improvements across an organization
Measuring and Improving Social Impacts: A Guide for Nonprofits, Companies and Impact Investors
by Marc J. Epstein Kristi YuthasIdentifying, measuring and improving social impact is a significant challenge for corporate and private foundations, charities, NGOs and corporations. How best to balance possible social and environmental benefits (and costs) against one another? How does one bring clarity to multiple possibilities and opportunities? Based on years of work and new field studies from around the globe, the authors have written a book for managers that is grounded in the best academic and managerial research.It is a practical guide that describes the steps needed for identifying, measuring and improving social impact. This approach is useful in maximizing the impact of different types of investments, including grants and donations, impact investments, and commercial investments.With numerous examples of actual organizational approaches, research into more than fifty organizations, and extensive practical guidance and best practices, Measuring and Improving Social Impacts fills a critical gap.
Measuring and Improving Social Impacts: A Guide for Nonprofits, Companies, and Impact Investors
by Marc J. Epstein Kristi YuthasPhilanthropic NGOs, foundations, and corporations face endlessly competing needs when deciding to invest or donate for maximum social impact. This book fills an enormous gap by providing a system to measure, operationalize, and improve any organization's impact investments.
Measuring and Managing Liquidity Risk
by Antonio Castagna Francesco FedeA fully up-to-date, cutting-edge guide to the measurement and management of liquidity riskWritten for front and middle office risk management and quantitative practitioners, this book provides the ground-level knowledge, tools, and techniques for effective liquidity risk management. Highly practical, though thoroughly grounded in theory, the book begins with the basics of liquidity risks and, using examples pulled from the recent financial crisis, how they manifest themselves in financial institutions. The book then goes on to look at tools which can be used to measure liquidity risk, discussing risk monitoring and the different models used, notably financial variables models, credit variables models, and behavioural variables models, and then at managing these risks. As well as looking at the tools necessary for effective measurement and management, the book also looks at and discusses current regulation and the implication of new Basel regulations on management procedures and tools.
Measuring and Managing Operational Risk
by Paola Leone Pasqualina Porretta Mario VellellaThis book covers Operational Risk Management (ORM), in the current context, and its new role in the risk management field. The concept of operational risk is subject to a wide discussion also in the field of ORM's literature, which has increased throughout the years. By analyzing different methodologies that try to integrate qualitative and quantitative data or different measurement approaches, the authors explore the methodological framework, the assumptions, statistical tool, and the main results of an operational risk model projected by intermediaries. A guide for academics and students, the book also discusses the avenue of mitigation acts, suggested by the main results of the methodologies applied. The book will appeal to students, academics, and financial supervisory and regulatory authorities.
Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact
by Paul LeoneThis book shows trainers how to create building blocks, construct the right linkages, and measure the impact of training programs from the first step (Level 1 - reaction) to the final destination (Level 5 - ROI). Including a new ground-breaking Level 6 exploring training sustainability, this is a must-read for HR professionals.
Measuring and Modeling Health Care Costs (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth #76)
by Colin Baker David M. Cutler Ana Aizcorbe Ernst R. BerndtHealth care costs represent a nearly 18% of U.S. gross domestic product and 20% of government spending. While there is detailed information on where these health care dollars are spent, there is much less evidence on how this spending affects health. The research in Measuring and Modeling Health Care Costs seeks to connect our knowledge of expenditures with what we are able to measure of results, probing questions of methodology, changes in the pharmaceutical industry, and the shifting landscape of physician practice. The research in this volume investigates, for example, obesity’s effect on health care spending, the effect of generic pharmaceutical releases on the market, and the disparity between disease-based and population-based spending measures. This vast and varied volume applies a range of economic tools to the analysis of health care and health outcomes. Practical and descriptive, this new volume in the Studies in Income and Wealth series is full of insights relevant to health policy students and specialists alike.
Measuring and Monitoring Absolute Poverty in the European Union
by Balint Menyhert Zsombor Cseres-Gergely Virmantas Kvedaras Benedetta Mina Filippo Pericoli Slavica ZecThis book sets out a new framework and methodology for the measuring and monitoring of absolute poverty in the European Union. A comparative needs-based analysis of poverty is presented that allows for cross-country examination. By comparing absolute poverty measurements with existing conventional measures, a new understanding of poverty within the European Union is explored, highlighting that poverty is cyclical and unevenly disturbed across Europe. Issued related to poverty, including food basket development, basket pricing, household compatibility, are also discussed. This book aims to provide a comprehensive account of methodological tools available for the measurement of poverty. It will be relevant to researchers and policymakers interested in absolute poverty measurement.This is an open access book.