“Queremos que tengas éxito.”
George W. Bush a Barack Obama, a nombre del grupo de ex presidentes, el día de su toma de posesión como presidente de los Estados Unidos de América.
Circula un muy interesante libro de Nancy Gibbs y Michael Duffy, denominado The Presidents Club*, en el que se da cuenta de un ritual de la presidencia norteamericana, aparentemente secreto, donde los ex-presidentes, independientemente del partido político al que pertenezcan, se elevan sobre sus diferencias ideológicas y personales para apoyar al inquilino en turno de la Casa Blanca a guiar con éxito el destino de la nación más poderosa del mundo. En esta obra, Gibbs y Duffy narran a detalle cómo el presidente de aquel país cuenta con el apoyo personal, y casi incondicional, de sus predecesores para navegar con éxito en las aguas burocráticas y políticas de Washington D.C. Esto, a través de la formalización de una “sociedad,” sin duda selecta, integrada por los hombres que han gobernado aquel país desde tiempos de Dwight Eisenhower, creada a iniciativa del ex-presidente Herbert Hoover.
De acuerdo con los autores, la lógica para crear una sociedad con tal membrecía es que solo un ex presidente sabe lo que significa sentarse en el escritorio de la Oficina Oval (The Big Desk), y tomar decisiones que afectan hasta el último rincón del planeta. Esta lógica es impecable y pragmática, e implica poner a disposición del presidente entrante, como “novato” que es, el capital intelectual, social y hasta emocional de sus predecesores, de manera directa y personal. Es sabido que Obama hizo dos llamadas clave antes de enviar a los Navy Seals a Pakistán por Osama Bin Laden, una a Bush Jr. y otra a Bill Clinton, para conocer sus opiniones y recomendaciones. Tampoco es secreto que Bush Jr. utilizó los buenos oficios diplomáticos de Clinton y de Jimmy Carter para solucionar conflictos de carácter internacional, y hasta para pulir sus discursos y afinar su oratoria (esto último no lo logró, por supuesto).
Estos pactos de colaboración, que reflejan alta civilidad democrática y pragmatismo puro, tienen al menos dos precondiciones de carácter institucional. Una es que los presidentes, una vez que acceden al poder, automáticamente eleven sus lealtades a la institución de la presidencia, por encima de sus lealtades partidistas. En otras palabras, que una vez sentados en la silla el “amor” por su país supere al “amor” por su partido político. Otra condición, vinculada estrechamente con la primera, es que la alternancia sea vista con naturalidad. En países con democracias consolidadas, no existe una estructura de incentivos para que un presidente busque por todos los medios tener un sucesor afín, o “delfín,” como ha sucedido en nuestro país. Por ejemplo, en el vecino país del norte en los últimos 35 años ha habido tres presidentes demócratas y tres republicanos, por lo que la “puerta revolvente” del poder funciona eficazmente.
Lo anterior contrasta drásticamente con la realidad de la política Mexicana, donde pareciera que la institución de la presidencia está subordinada a la institución del partido político. Así, da la impresión de que los presidentes y ex presidentes primero son priistas o panistas y después son líderes políticos de la nación. Ello, en buena parte, impide que haya continuidad en políticas públicas clave para el desarrollo nacional, y que aquellos que han ocupado la “silla del águila” pongan a disposición de sus sucesores su experiencia y buenos oficios para lograr las metas del gobierno en turno, independientemente del partido politico del que éste provenga.
Sin duda, los mandatos y legados de los ex presidentes de México –como de cualquier otra nación- pueden ser controvertidos y debatibles, sin embargo, ese no es el punto. De lo que se trata es de generar mecanismos institucionales para que la experiencia personal acumulada de quienes han gobernado el país sirva a los nuevos mandatarios. Ello contribuiría a fortalecer la institución presidencial y a evitar hierros altamente costosos, sobre todo cuando son resultado de la inevitable “novatez” los presidentes entrantes. En ese sentido, la experiencia norteamericana, con el citado “club de ex presidentes,” resulta muy relevante como caso de estudio. Desafortunadamente, para replicarse por estos rumbos, primero sería necesario que los presidentes salientes genuinamente desearan que a su sucesor o sucesora, y por tanto al país, le vaya bien.
*The Presidents Club, de Nancy Gibbs & Michael Duffy. Simon & Schuster Inc. (2012).
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Malcolm Gladwell on College Rankings
Read a very interesting article (link here) on the nature and underlying assumptions of college rankings. As in many areas of policy -and life-, the weighs allocated to specific factors reflect political values.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Top of the Class
"Top of the Class", a very interesting speech -and article- on the rapid development of world-class universities in Asia. As it can be seen, it is not only a matter of money but also a matter of political culture and regional governance arrangements. Certainly, in Latin America some of the strategies followed by Asian countries (e.g. China) would be politically unfeasible, however, that should not be an excuse to put the issue on the agenda and discuss it.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The study of undergraduate Economics in Mexico: recent trends
According to international studies[1], undergraduate degrees awarded in Economics have declined significantly in diverse countries from 1990 to 1999. Siegfried and Round (2001) documented such declines in Australia, Canada, United States and Germany in the last decade. The authors tested various hypotheses, for instance, trends in GDP grow, the salience of economic crises, labor market expectations, academic rigor and mathematical requirements, and the increasing popularity of “substitute disciplines” (Finance, Business Administration, and International Affairs, among others). Apparently, the variables that better predict such declines in the aforementioned countries are the increasing salience of “substitute disciplines”, as well as the increased academic rigor and mathematics requirements in the study of Economics.
Based on official data, the declining trend in the study of Economics is also present in Mexico. Even though statistics show that first year enrollment in Economics has increased 17% -from 22,644 students in 2000 to 26,475 students in 2010-, total higher education enrollment has increased 54% in the same period; hence, enrollment in Economics has grown only a third relative to the growth of total enrollment in Mexican universities. As a consequence, the percentage of Economic students relative to total enrollment in higher education has diminished significantly in the last nine years. In 2000, around 1.3% of all undergraduate students in Mexican higher education were pursuing Economic degrees; by 2009 the share is 1 per cent. Moreover, in terms of degrees awarded, in 2000 the share was 1.4% of total undergraduate degrees; by 2009 the share was reduced to 0.8 per cent.
To put the above data in perspective, available data shows that in the decade from 1990 to 2000, in average, in the United States 2.2% of all undergraduate degrees awarded were in Economics. Meanwhile, in the decade from 1999 to 2009 in Mexico only 0.95% of all degrees awarded were in the field of Economics. In my view, the same hypotheses proposed by Siegfried and Round could be explored in Mexico in order to explain the decline. In Mexico -as in Australia, Canada, United States and Germany-, there has been a growing popularity of “substitute disciplines”, and the academic requirements and mathematical rigor of Economics has been also increasing. Nevertheless, specific studies are needed in order to see how the data fit the hypotheses.
[1] Siegfried, J. J. & Round, D. K. (2001) International Trends in Economic Degrees during the 1990´s. The Journal of Economic Education, Vol. 32, N0. 3, The Scholarship of Teaching Economics (Summer, 2001), pp. 203-218.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Budget Reform in Mexican Higher Education: Peril and Promise
A dominant theme of Mexican higher education in the 90´s and in the 21st century has been financial distress. Higher education faces problems throughout the world: universities are underfunded, rising worries about quality; student support is inadequate; the proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds is lamentably small (Barr, 2005). Also, the financing of universities in many countries is regressive since the money comes from general taxation but the major beneficiaries come from better-off backgrounds (Barr, 2005). Higher education finance is therefore salient to an extent that it is timidly addressed in many developing countries, because of its politically sensitive nature.
Around the world, a cause of higher education´s austerity is the increasing scarcity of public revenue (Johnstone, 1998), a function, in turn, of competition from several other societal needs. In political terms, tax funding leads to under-resourcing because higher education will always lose out to competing and politically more popular claims (Barr, 2003).
Within this context, a number of developed and developing countries have undertaken significant transformations of the financing of their tertiary educational systems. In most nations, the goals of such reforms have been: (1) to implement budgeting process based on performance indicators, and (2) to generate additional sources of revenue.
In the past eight years, the Mexican federal government has made important efforts to increase the national spending for public higher education institutions. In 2000, Congress enacted a law that requires the State to invest at least one per cent of the GDP in public higher education -currently federal investment reaches the 0.68 per cent of the GDP. Particularly, in the past three years Mexican Congress has increased the funding for higher education institutions by almost 15 per cent, amounting 4.5 billion dollars more, in comparison to 2006.
However, these fiscal efforts have not yet been accompanied by a deep financing reform in higher education. Still, year to year, the presidents and directors of higher education institutions go to Congress to lobby for extra resources. Every year, they argue, the very existence of their universities is in jeopardy if budget resources do not increase. In some cases this is true, but in some others such claim is just a political maneuver. At the end of the day, we cannot blame university leaders for this behavior; they are just reacting to the incentives in place.
The perverse incentive system is as follows: the Mexican Department of Finance prepares and presents a budget that is underestimated, knowing that public universities are going to ask for more. Aware of this, universities prepare their lobbying strategy well in advance during the year, distracting themselves from other central academic issues. The end result is usually a budget very close to the one originally planned by the Department of Finance, but after a fierce political battle, where many people get hurt -politically speaking of course.
Unfortunately, this perverse system of incentives only delays the deep reform that our higher education budget process urgently needs. There have been many interesting proposals on the table in the past few years, in order to correct the situation. Perhaps the most relevant is the implementation of multi-year budgets, designed for some special academic and research projects. This mechanism is already in use in some OECD countries, as well as in Brazil.
Negotiations will be hard in order to implement such a policy, however, it is worth it. Multi-year budgets can provide public higher education institutions with a very scarce resource in Mexico: financial certainty for long term planning.
The bad news is that any attempt to reform the higher education budget process that does not include a series of reforms within the higher education institutions is incomplete. The federal budget process needs to change, yes; but we also need to improve the way public universities generate their own sources of revenue. So far, only roughly 15% of resources for public higher education come from private sources, compared to countries such as Chile (84%), Korea (75%), and the United States (65%).
In short, if we really want to develop a world-class higher education system in Mexico, we cannot solely rely on fiscal revenue. As observed by Barr (2003), around the world higher education will always lose to other more pressing social needs in the competition for fiscal revenues. Hence, attempting to develop a system of great universities solely based on public revenue is building on shaky grounds.
References
Around the world, a cause of higher education´s austerity is the increasing scarcity of public revenue (Johnstone, 1998), a function, in turn, of competition from several other societal needs. In political terms, tax funding leads to under-resourcing because higher education will always lose out to competing and politically more popular claims (Barr, 2003).
Within this context, a number of developed and developing countries have undertaken significant transformations of the financing of their tertiary educational systems. In most nations, the goals of such reforms have been: (1) to implement budgeting process based on performance indicators, and (2) to generate additional sources of revenue.
In the past eight years, the Mexican federal government has made important efforts to increase the national spending for public higher education institutions. In 2000, Congress enacted a law that requires the State to invest at least one per cent of the GDP in public higher education -currently federal investment reaches the 0.68 per cent of the GDP. Particularly, in the past three years Mexican Congress has increased the funding for higher education institutions by almost 15 per cent, amounting 4.5 billion dollars more, in comparison to 2006.
However, these fiscal efforts have not yet been accompanied by a deep financing reform in higher education. Still, year to year, the presidents and directors of higher education institutions go to Congress to lobby for extra resources. Every year, they argue, the very existence of their universities is in jeopardy if budget resources do not increase. In some cases this is true, but in some others such claim is just a political maneuver. At the end of the day, we cannot blame university leaders for this behavior; they are just reacting to the incentives in place.
The perverse incentive system is as follows: the Mexican Department of Finance prepares and presents a budget that is underestimated, knowing that public universities are going to ask for more. Aware of this, universities prepare their lobbying strategy well in advance during the year, distracting themselves from other central academic issues. The end result is usually a budget very close to the one originally planned by the Department of Finance, but after a fierce political battle, where many people get hurt -politically speaking of course.
Unfortunately, this perverse system of incentives only delays the deep reform that our higher education budget process urgently needs. There have been many interesting proposals on the table in the past few years, in order to correct the situation. Perhaps the most relevant is the implementation of multi-year budgets, designed for some special academic and research projects. This mechanism is already in use in some OECD countries, as well as in Brazil.
Negotiations will be hard in order to implement such a policy, however, it is worth it. Multi-year budgets can provide public higher education institutions with a very scarce resource in Mexico: financial certainty for long term planning.
The bad news is that any attempt to reform the higher education budget process that does not include a series of reforms within the higher education institutions is incomplete. The federal budget process needs to change, yes; but we also need to improve the way public universities generate their own sources of revenue. So far, only roughly 15% of resources for public higher education come from private sources, compared to countries such as Chile (84%), Korea (75%), and the United States (65%).
In short, if we really want to develop a world-class higher education system in Mexico, we cannot solely rely on fiscal revenue. As observed by Barr (2003), around the world higher education will always lose to other more pressing social needs in the competition for fiscal revenues. Hence, attempting to develop a system of great universities solely based on public revenue is building on shaky grounds.
References
Barr, N. (2005). Financing higher education. Finance and Development, 42(2). Retrieved from http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2005/06/barr.htm
Barr, N. (2003). Financing higher education: Comparing the options. United Kingdom: London School of Economics and Political Science.
Johstone, B. (1998). The financing and management of higher education: A status report on worldwide reforms. Washington D.C.: The World Bank.
Friday, September 18, 2009
GDP fetishism in education
An economist´s simplest answer to questions about the well-being of people is the gross domestic product, or GDP, per person of each country. However, as we might suspect, GDP-based statistics do not reveal the whole story about how satisfied people really are with their living standards. According to the Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, in recent years economists and statisticians have been looking at alternative measures of well-being, even "happiness", a notion that it was seemed absurd to quantify. Thus, the tendency is to pursue new techniques that produce more qualitative data on the issue at hand, being this national well-being, education, or health.
Higher education policy in Mexico, especially at the Legislative level, is still fixated with traditional GDP-based statistics. The debate usually revolves around the issue of how far -or how close- are we from the goal of investing one percent of GDP in higher education (currently we invest 0.67 percent). I argue that if we want to rapidly advance on the improvement of quality, relevance and equity in tertiary education, we must pay much more attention to other, more qualitative, policy measures.
Instead of solely focusing on measures such as the percentage of GDP invested and/or the expenditure per student in higher education, we must rely on "soft" measures as well, such as student learning outcomes, teacher-student interactions, and even student satisfaction at a given institution. This would give a clearer picture of how different universities compare to one another, and will reveal the extent of the impact of public money invested on the desired educational goals. The Commission´s Report gives interesting insights of the implications of such soft measures.
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