From: miklg@acuson.com (Michael Goldman )
Subject: US as Number 1 (relative ranking books)
Organization: Acuson; Mountain View, California
Distribution: soc.culture, sci.econ
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 21:27:21 GMT


	A lot of discussion on the net is of the nature of which
	country is better or worse in some regard.  These discussions
	usually suffer from lack of data comparing different
	countries.  (Eg., the US murder rate is high, but how is it
	compared to other countries?)  I would like to mention three
	recent books that compare the US and many other countries in
	such things as infant mortality, murder rates, rate of growth
	of exports, etc.


	"We're Number One" by Andrew L. Shapiro, 1992 $10, Vintage
	books.

	This collects a lot of data from such organizations as the UN,
	the OECD, the World Bank, etc., and presents them with a page
	or so of text per table.  He covers a broad range such as
	health, crime, living standaards, attitudes, etc. so you get
	breadth rather than depth.  The data is usually presented in
	units 'per capita', or as a %-age of GDP so that the
	comparisons are meaningful.  There were a lot of surprises for
	me.  E.g., the US murder rate is 9.4/100,000, with the next
	highest being Sweden with 7.2/100,000.  (From another data
	source I know that the US rate for blacks is 66/100,000 and for
	whites it is 8+/100,000.)  The surprise for me is not that the
	US has the highest rate but that it isn't as much higher as I
	thought.  Another surprise to me was how poor the US is in
	recycling - 29% of glass, 12% of paper, compared to the best
	country (the Netherlands) at 53% and 62%, respectively.  In
	attitudes, the supposedly multi-ethnic US comes in 11th in a
	tolerance survey with 59% saying they are comfortable people of
	other values, etc. vs. 85% for the Danes, and 13% for the
	Japanese.  A lot of caveats will suggest themselves, as
	statistics always do, but this is a good starting point for a
	lot of discussion, and the text is fairly intelligent.  Since
	Mr. Shapiro cites all his references, this would also be a good
	starting point to find out where more detailed analyses can be
	found.


	"Where We Stand" Bantam Books, $24, Wolff, Rutten, Bayers, et al.

	Similar to the above, but with different sets of data.  One
	surprise:  The US has one of the smallest middle classes of
	the major countries.  In the US, 53.7% have incomes between
	0.67 and 1.5 times the national median, compared to Japan with
	90%, Sweden with 79%, Germany with 70.1%, and 6 other countries
	with higher numbers.  Another surprise: the US is 12th in
	households owning their own home at 59% - just below Japan at
	60% (the run up in housing prices there is recent.)  In fact,
	some of the richest countries, like Germany and Switzerland
	have some of the lowest rates of home ownership.


	"The Economist Book of Vital Statistics" (New York: Times
	Books) is another good one, cited in the Shapiro book.


	Actually, I've never seen actual data convince anyone on the
	net of anything.  There seems to be something that prohibits
	people from writing "Oh, I didn't know that - so you were right
	and I was wrong - thanks for the info."  It would be nice to
	see more of that, though the shock would probably kill half the
	long time netters.

	- Michael

-- 
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have
exhausted all other alternatives." - Abba Eban
	Disclaimer:  All views are solely my own & not the views of Acuson.
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