Exactly. Someone succeeded in making the most common use of PPP something for which it’s logically inappropriate. Of course it can be an accident of history but it’s still interesting.
If your goal is to understand the difference between median and mean, developing sensitivity for issues like that is the point. Even if it’s all accidents of history, you want to have issues like that get your conscious attention when looking at statistics.
The fact that the CIA factbook happens to be the best source of knowledge and the CIA is an organisation that heavily invest into shapping public discourse is something that can raise a bit of attention.
Of course it can be just because some bureaucrats inside the CIA are stupid that they don’t give you the median income, because the have never thought that anyone would be interested in the median income.
A much better explanation of why they don’t give you that data is that they actually want that the GDP per capita is used that way. That people use GDP per capita when they want to think of the typical income of a country.
If people don’t have any good data of the median income of countries, than that’s what happens. Because of decisions by the CIA GDP per capita data is available but median income of countries isn’t.
Statisticians in the CIA aren’t stupid. They should at least be aware of the effects of choosing to report the wealth of countries that way.
The CIA also takes information warfare seriously. I live in Germany. After WWII there was a lot of investment in shaping German public opinion by the CIA.
In the West people would be upset if the CIA world factbook gives them wrong numbers but nobody is upset if they are just given a number like GDP per capita when they want to know about the typical income.
Yes, PPP is logically independent of GDP, but PPP GDP per capita is quite popular, probably the most common use of PPP.
Exactly. Someone succeeded in making the most common use of PPP something for which it’s logically inappropriate. Of course it can be an accident of history but it’s still interesting.
If your goal is to understand the difference between median and mean, developing sensitivity for issues like that is the point. Even if it’s all accidents of history, you want to have issues like that get your conscious attention when looking at statistics.
The fact that the CIA factbook happens to be the best source of knowledge and the CIA is an organisation that heavily invest into shapping public discourse is something that can raise a bit of attention.
Of course it can be just because some bureaucrats inside the CIA are stupid that they don’t give you the median income, because the have never thought that anyone would be interested in the median income. A much better explanation of why they don’t give you that data is that they actually want that the GDP per capita is used that way. That people use GDP per capita when they want to think of the typical income of a country.
If people don’t have any good data of the median income of countries, than that’s what happens. Because of decisions by the CIA GDP per capita data is available but median income of countries isn’t.
Statisticians in the CIA aren’t stupid. They should at least be aware of the effects of choosing to report the wealth of countries that way.
The CIA also takes information warfare seriously. I live in Germany. After WWII there was a lot of investment in shaping German public opinion by the CIA. In the West people would be upset if the CIA world factbook gives them wrong numbers but nobody is upset if they are just given a number like GDP per capita when they want to know about the typical income.
It is not the “most common use of PPP”, at least in my neck of the woods.
It is not, not even close.
It is not.
Really..? Are you posting drunk or something?