Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Another Measure of Human Development for US States

All right, forgive me, but it seems that I'm not quite done with this whole human development index thing. I've come across another effort, in addition to the American Human Development Project's, to apply a measure similar to the United Nations' HDI, to measure the human development of the US states. First, here is the AHDP's map of their version of HDI by state:


The other attempt to measure HDI by state is by Jeremy R. Porter of Rice University and Christopher W. Purser of Mississippi State in this 2008 paper. And they've come up with some slightly different results from the AHDP. Here is a map of HDI by state that I made based on data found in their paper, "Measuring Relative Sub-National Human Development: An Application of the United Nations' Human Development Index in the US".



The scales are different, obviously, but you can still see the general ordering of the states by HDI. And it's interesting to see what sort of differences can result from slightly different methodologies. The broad patterns here are about the same: in both studies the least developed states are all in the South, with the most developed states clustering in the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, and parts of the West. But there are some real differences. California is a top-ten state in the AHDP, but is 18th in the Porter and Purser paper. Wyoming is in the second-lowest quintile in the AHDP, but it shoots to #8 in Porter and Purser. Virginia is somewhere in the teens in the AHDP, but #33 in Porter and Purser. And Georgia, which is close to the middle in the AHDP, drops to 44th in Porter and Purser (out of 48: P & P don't list Alaska and Hawaii).

There are a couple of general trends that could describe some of the differences between the two studies: P & P's methodology seems to slightly favor the interior West; and the least developed region in the AHDP is the Upland South plus the lower Mississippi Valley states, whereas in P & P it's the Deep South that comes out at the bottom. (In both cases, Mississippi is the least developed state.)

So what are the differences in methodology that have led to these different outcomes? Well... I don't know. But you can compare the differences for yourself. Kristen Lewis, a Co-Director of the AHDP, told me about their methodology in general terms. It uses measures of income, education, and health, just like the UN HDI, but adapted for the US context:
Income: using the US GDP per capita would assign everyone the same income, which is far from reality and obviously not helpful for making comparisons among groups. A state GDP would not make that much sense, as economies are increasingly regional, with people living and working and selling their goods and services across state borders all the time (think of the NY-NJ-CT area, or DC-MD-VA-DE). Using personal earnings tied income to actual people and allowed us to disaggregate by state, congressional district, racial/ethnic group, and even gender (this is why we went with median personal earnings rather than household earnings). Thus we use median personal earnings for full and part time workers aged 16 and up.

Education: the global HDI uses literacy and school enrollment as their proxies for knowledge. In countries where one in five or one in three adults cannot read and where huge numbers of school-aged children are not in school, these are excellent proxies. In the US, however, we need a more demanding standard than literacy - just being able to read doesn't in and of itself allow for a life of freedom, opportunity, choices. Of course, functional illiteracy is still a problem here - but that group is well captured in our "less than high school degree" category. Also, data on literacy is not collected in the same way or down to the same level as the educational attainment data we have from ACS. THus we use a combination of degree attainment for the population of adults over 25 – HS, BA, and graduate degree – and school enrollment for the population aged 3-24.

Health: we also use life expectancy. We calculated life expectancy from mortality data, and ours is actually the first published source of state and congressional district-level life expectancy. We calculated LIEX from county death data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As for Porter and Purser, here is part of the description of methodology in their paper:
Data for this project were acquired from a number of sources. First, data on literacy was obtained from the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL)1. As proposed by Lind (1992) there are five different types of literacy (NIFL 1998). The data used in this study reflect those in each county that are in the lowest literacy group (level 1 literacy). Those in this literacy category (level 1) would have minimal literacy skills and would be relatively disadvantaged in relation to the average individual in the U.S (NIFL 1998. For the creation of the final scale the variable was reverse coded so that a high score was desirable. Second, the data on those within the county with a bachelors degree was obtained from the census bureau2. This was substituted for the percent enrollment due to the low variation in enrollment rates at the county level (extremely high percent of students enrolled in high school in the U.S. with low variation) and is considered to be a proxy for the measure. In relation to the health component, data pertaining to the average life-expectancy of each county was obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)3.

Finally, data pertaining to the per capita personal income at the county level were obtained from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)4 via the CA 1-3 table at the county level and was used as a proxy for the GDP of the county. The per capita personal income variable was as a proxy for the county level GDP based on ancillary analyses that showed it to be an adequate substitute, as evidenced by the fact that, at the state level, the Gross State Product (GSP) and the State Personal Income per capita (SPI) correlate at the .001 significance level with a coefficient of .998. Region and metropolitan status were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau and Economic Research Services (ERS), respectively as a classifiers for spatial description.
Make of that what you will. Personally, I find it counter-intuitive that New Mexico would be more highly ranked than Arizona, and that Georgia - anchored by the major metropolitan region of Atlanta - would rank in the bottom five and below states like Arkansas and Kentucky, which is what the Porter and Purser paper proposes. But then (with apologies to David Foster Wallace) the sum of my expertise in this area could be inscribed with a magic marker on the rim of a shot glass.

By the way, Porter and Purser have a couple of maps of their own, including this one of relative development at the county level:



Florida appears to be dripping.

30 comments:

Dieran Information said...

I really liked the post and the stories are really thanks for sharing the informative post.

travel vacation tips said...

I really like this web and I'm very thankful your web information is very helpful .. our team is always successful.


My Wordpress Journey: patio furniture umbrella

commercial vacuum cleaners said...

I bookmarked this blog earlier and just came back to it ... well put and I will definately be sending this on once I get to my work PC ...


retweezers|Kaos Couple

TV show said...

yesterday, my friend told me that there is a great site.,. and I tried to visit the site on purpose .... and he was right, this site is really good .... tomorrow I'll do the visit here again, hopefully there is new information that I get on this site ..





New Smart Phone

gadget news said...

Some of today's visit to this website, and as usual the articles in it are always qualified ...



dofollow social bookmark

Anonymous said...

Finally I found out about this .... thanks mate, your post is useful ...




Bluetooth Headphones

Online Information said...

Visiting this site is fun, because I can get new information to add knowledge ... thanks for the owner and the author of this site ....

information ,technology, business,autos, entertainment

Anonymous said...

Information is something that is very useful for sharing, and I thank you for the owner of this blog who have been sharing information ...



Soccer Shoes World Cup Merchandise

Sport Watches said...

Thanks to search engines because it has led me to this good website ...

Drafting Table

Penis Enlargement Pills said...

I am thoroughly convinced in this said post. I am currently searching for ways in which I could enhance my knowledge in this said topic you have posted here. It does help me a lot knowing that you have shared this information here freely. I love the way the people here interact and shared their opinions too. I would love to track your future posts pertaining to the said topic we are able to read.

jahit said...

another great post i found
http://indostatueshop.com/2011/03/indonesian-statue-shop-statue-from-native-craftsmen/

cheer

justin bieber said...

I first saw this on a myspazz site and lost the bookmark. Nifty, nifty little map.

Cerita Seks said...

Hello...
Cerita Seks, Cerita Dewasa

Panas
, Cewek Bugil, Cewek Indo Bugil,

Foto Cewek Bugil, Foto Gadis SMA, Memek Cewek, Cerita Dewasa, Cerita Dewasa Terbaru

Permainan Online Memasak said...

Nice information...
Dating Tips . Fist Dating . First Dating Tips . Get Rid Of Hickey Tips . Rid of Blackheads Naturally

xl pharmacy said...

I think that the whole theory of human development needs to be rewritten, more and more evidence shows that our origins go further that we thought it to be.

natural viagra substitute said...

Great post. I think one of the basic things that we should know know is that we must always make sure that you are safe in every transactions you wanted to indulge with.

album foto said...

I think people fear idea management and innovation because there's a significant number of ideas that simply won't plan out.......Nice statement.....keep posting

asuransi pendidikan said...

this day I've been searching for information on various issues, this I found very good and I would like to congratulate you for your work.

design interior jakarta said...

I think that this post is one of the best that i have read in my life, congrats you did a great job,.

perusahaan security said...

the difference between the content spammers and most corporate innovators is that the smaller

jual wine said...

I'm writing to you because I just came across a business that I think has great potential. It lets you save money on almost everything. Make money from almost everything,

coklat valentine said...

If growth is important to a firm, and if growth is dependent on offering existing products and services to new customers

belajar internet marketing said...

innovation is very natural and happens in the "real world" as new plants and animals colonize new ecological niches.

konsultan perusahaan said...

I wonder how you got so good. This is really a fascinating blog, lots of stuff that I can get into. One thing I just want to say is that your Blog is so perfect

kuliner bandung said...

We generally think most specifically about the risk associated with a new product introduction

how to stay erect said...

I would be aware that as somebody who really doesn’t comment to blogs a lot (in actual fact, this may be my first put up), I don’t think the time period “lurker” is very flattering to a non-posting reader.

anna said...

panic away review I'm really impressed with your writing skills and also with the structure in your weblog. yeast infection no more Is this a paid topic or did you customize it yourself? Anyway stay up the nice high quality writing, it's uncommon to look a great weblog like this one today panic away review

obat herbal said...

Good Article,,
Mengobati Kutil di Sekitar Kemaluan Wanita
Cara Mengobati Kutil di Sekitar Kemaluan Wanita
Solusi Mengobati Kutil di Sekitar Kemaluan Wanita
Mengobati Bintik Kutil di Sekitar Kemaluan Wanita
Tips Mengobati Kutil di Sekitar Kemaluan Wanita

Anonymous said...

Gmail Email Login

Admin said...


Thank you for your support who has read our article. I'm very happy if you can share our article below

Cara Menghilangkan Biang Keringat pada bayi
Cara Mengatasi Infeksi Usus
Cara menghilangkan Kurap
Agen Resmi QnC Jelly Gamat di Kudus
Cara Mengobati Bronkitis