Guide to Country Indicators

The spreadsheet builds on the indicators included in the country profiles in Hague and Harrop (2007 edition). The spreadsheet contains eight indicators for all 151 countries with a population of at least one million, using the CIA’s estimates of population for July 2007. It excludes microstates (many of them islands) with a population below one million. Blanks indicate missing data. This document describes the indicators, provides links to sources and outlines some EXCEL tools that can be used to interrogate the data.

Country rating

This is the overall rating produced by Freedom House, scored as follows:

• Free
• Partly free
• Not free

Freedom House defines these categories as follows:

Free Open political competition; respect for civil liberties; an independent civic life; independent media.

Partly free Limited political rights and civil liberties. Often: corruption, weak rule of law, civil strife, a dominant party.

Not free Basic political rights are lacking and civil liberties are widely and systematically denied.

Especially at the extremes, Freedom House’s classification produces similar results to our own classification of regimes as liberal democracies, illiberal democracies and authoritarian.

Political rights

Political rights are scored by Freedom House on a scale from 1 (most rights) to 7 (fewest rights). A score of one indicates that ‘those who are elected rule; that there are competitive parties or other political groupings; and that the opposition plays an important role and has actual power. Minority groups have reasonable self-government or can participate in the government through informal consensus.’

Civil liberties

Civil liberties are scored by Freedom House on a scale from 1 (most liberties) to 7 (fewest liberties). A score of one indicates that a country ‘comes closest to ensuring the freedoms expressed in the civil liberties checklist, including freedom of expression, assembly, association, education, and religion. Such countries are distinguished by an established and generally equitable system of rule of law, enjoy free economic activity and tend to strive for equality of opportunity.’

Freedom of the press

Freedom of the press (i.e. the media generally) is scored by Freedom House on a scale from 0 (most freedom) to 100 (least freedom). The score is based on detailed consideration of the legal, political and economic environments within which the media operate. The nature of these environments shapes the media’s vulnerability to pressure.

Human development index

The Human development index, produced by the United Nations Development Programme, is scored on a scale from 0 (least developed) to 1 (most developed). The index measures average achievement within a country on three dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life (life expectancy), knowledge (literacy, enrolment in education), and living standards (gross domestic product per head).

Population

As estimated by the CIA in The World Factbook. The CIA itself draws on estimates by the US Bureau of the Census.

Gross national income, gross national income per head

As estimated by the World Bank. The Bank uses the Atlas method, based on a three year average of the exchange rate to the US dollar. This technique reduces the impact on the estimates of short-term fluctuations in exchange rates.

Ease of doing business

As estimated by the World Bank. This ranking is based on five dimensions. As the Bank explains, ‘first , the indicators document the degree of regulation, such as the number of procedures to start a business or register commercial property. Second, they gauge regulatory outcomes, such as the time and cost to enforce a contract, go through bankruptcy or trade across borders. Third, they measure the extent of legal protections of property, for example, the protections of investors against looting by company directors or the scope of assets that can be used as collateral according to secured transactions laws. Fourth, they measure the flexibility of employment regulation. Finally, they document the tax burden on businesses.’ Note that ‘flexibility of employment regulation’ includes ease of firing workers.

The ranking in our spreadsheet for ease of doing business is based on all countries analyzed by the World Bank, not just the countries in our spreadsheet (use the RANK function, explained below, to obtain a ranking just for the countries in our spreadsheet).

Analyzing the data

The following EXCEL functions, each with an example, may be helpful. Enter your formula into a cell where you would like the result to appear. Ensure that this cell is outside the range on which you are basing the calculation. Begin each formula with = and include no blanks in your formula. Note that a range of cells can be referenced using a colon: thus A1:A3 refers to A1, A2 and A3. For more information on a particular function, enter the function into the help facility in the EXCEL program. Some understanding of statistical techniques is useful with some of these functions; Hague and Harrop (2007 edn, pp. 93-4) offers some help but any statistics text will provide more.

AVERAGE

To obtain average gross national income per head:

=AVERAGE(I5:I155)

STANDARD DEVIATION

To obtain the standard deviation of national income per head:

=STDEV(I5:I155)

MEDIAN

To obtain the median freedom of the press score:

=MEDIAN(E5:E155)

MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM

To obtain the highest and lowest score on the human development index:

=MIN(F5:F155)

=MAX(F5:F155)

PERCENTILE

To obtain the national income per head that ten per cent of the countries are higher than:

=PERCENTILE(I5:I155,0.9)

RANK

To obtain Afghanistan’s rank in the ease of doing business scale in the countries in the spreadsheet (as opposed to all countries in the world):

=RANK(J5,J$5:J$155,1)

Then use EDIT, FILL DOWN to obtain the rank of each country in the spreadsheet.

Note that we have used $ signs here to indicate absolute (constant) cell references.

Note also that the 1 at the end of the formula is used to indicate ascending order.

CORRELATION

To correlate political rights with national income per head:

=CORREL(C5:C155,I5:I155)

SCATTER CHART

To plot human development scores against national income per head, use INSERT, CHART

AVERAGES WITHIN GROUPS

To find average national income per head within free countries only:

We first copy national income per head for free countries only to a new column. We do this using the IF command whose general form is:

=IF(logical test,value if true, value if false)

=IF(B5=1,I5,"") (n.b. "" are speech marks rather than four apostrophes.)

Then use EDIT, FILL DOWN to complete this new column

Delete any stray zeros in the new column, then calculate the average for this column as shown above.

REDUCING NUMBERS TO CATEGORIES

To produce a new column containing 1 if the country has an above average national income per head and 0 otherwise:

=IF(I6>8234,1,0)

The use EDIT, FILL DOWN to complete the new column