Liberty Alone

Play with it here.

Its lots of fun, and can help show correlations (not necessarily causation though) between different statistics and how they change over time.

Anyone who likes playing with graphs or wants to know how India’s income per capita has changed over time or what countries have the highest female labour force participation and if there’s any correlation to birth rates should have a play.

Two good articles about how misleading statistics can be if you don’t look at other factors:

First up is Don Boudreaux who usually writes at Cafe Hayek showing how the oft-quoted statistic of French higher productivity is actually a byproduct of the restrictive employment laws in France leading to less employment for lower skilled, less productive workers. Similarly, an influx of immigrants can lower the average wage, but because they are doing more lower paid, low skill jobs. The situation of native workers does not change.

Second is The Economist blog Free Exchange with an article talking about the higher infant mortality rates in the US. Is this down to a better health care service as opposed to, as is often claimed, the lack of socialised health care? Better health care means there is more artificial insemination leading to more multiple pregnancies, which often incur the loss of at least on baby. Also the higher level of health care can lead to higher levels of premature babies being born rather than miscarried. Since the chances of a premature baby surviving are significantly less this will contribute to higher infant mortality rates.

These are just two examples of the misapplication of statistics.
There are many many more areas where statistics are misapplied, usually to further someone’s prejudice.

Next time someone gives you an impressive or worrying sounding statistic, pause to wonder whether they could be explained by something else.