Author
Jodi York
Abstract
Statistics New Zealand’s recent feasibility study into measuring productivity of health care and education noted that there are some big challenges for the compiler related to scope of measurement, definition of government output quantity and quality, and the lack of economically meaningful prices. How much difference do these choices really make? This paper uses 2000-07 school data published by the Ministry of Education to illustrate the different input and output estimates that flow out of different definitions of scope, varieties of quality adjustment, and price proxies. Results are interpreted in terms of the specifics of the New Zealand school system.
The devil is in the details: demonstrating the impact of measurement choices on inputs to government sector productivity (PDF, 547kb)