Represent 'inclusive wealth'

[pdez90]

Hi, this is a priority term that needs to be defined. Data for the same can be found on http://uneplive.org/InclusiveWealth#.VrxjxBh96ig We want to tag our datasets with the term 'inclusive wealth' and the terms 'inclusive' and 'wealth'

[pbuttigieg]

@pdez90 Thanks! Please include some endorsed sources for definitions or contextual material for us to establish the semantic baseline.

[pbuttigieg]

A World Bank Glossary page which may be useful. On a high level, I would assert that wealth is the control of entities with resource roles by a person or organisation. We would then have monetary wealth and other classes as subclasses.

[pbuttigieg]

The Inclusive Wealth Report 2012 could be the authority here.

Wikipedia's evaluation of IW is:

The United Nations definition of inclusive wealth is a monetary measure which includes the sum of natural, human and physical assets.

Is there a different between the resource role and an asset role?

Again, a Wikipedia definition as a quodlibet

In financial accounting, an asset is an economic resource. Anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset. Simply stated, assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash (although cash itself is also considered an asset). Sullivan, Arthur; Steven M. Sheffrin (2003). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 272. ISBN 0-13-063085-3.

Thus an asset role is a resource role which inheres in entities that can be exchanged in an economic system. Similar to what we've seen before, @mark-jensen, (potential) participation in defined process sets can create a logical def.

[pbuttigieg]

@pdez90 could you scan over our interpretations and comment on whether this is close to what you need? If not, please steer the conversation.

@mark-jensen Would you be able to create some draft classes based on the thoughts below and your own analysis?

A preliminary class for inclusive wealth could be a subclass of wealth (see below) and have a definition like "wealth which is the sum of human, manufactured, natural, and health capital assets" The "adjusted inclusive wealth" measure seems important too, but this is definitely more of an information artefact.

Note that the "Key Lessons" section (p. 18) is quite important in qualifying much of the material below.

From the IWR's Summary for Decision Makers:

How we calculate inclusive wealth The Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) seeks to measure the social value of capital assets of nations beyond manufactured capital. The index is inclusive in the sense that it accounts for other key assets as important components of the productive base of the economy, such as natural capital and human capital. The total value of capital assets – or wealth – is concretely measured by adding up the social worth of each capital type of a nation, where the social (or shadow) prices per unit of capital form act as a weight in its index of inclusive wealth

We'll definitely need asset with subclasses human asset, natural asset, and rental price. capital asset comes into the picture too, but its relation to the subclasses of asset is not clear to me just yet. The relation of assets to capital (seems like a summation over the value of assets) is needed as we then can create human capital, manufactured capital, natural capital, and health capital to contend with the material below:

Capital assets We measure wealth by studying various assets that can be grouped into the following four categories: human capital, manufactured capital, natural capital, and health capital (health is treated separately from human capital for a matter of exposition).

wealth is defined here as the total value of all capital assets. What is often discussed in the IWR seems to be measured wealth, or an information artefact which attempts to measure actual wealth by valuing assets. I think we should concern ourself with actual wealth for now, but add a comment that it can be confounded with measured wealth. social value seems to be key to the Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) and in defining value in general. Subclasses of national wealth (the total value of assets that are under a nation's control, meaning we need nation imported or created).

Regarding human capital:

Human capital is primarily captured by measuring the population’s educational attainment and the additional compensation over the training period, while the shadow price per unit of human capital as used in the report is obtained by computing the present value of the labor compensation received by workers over an entire working life. We computed shadow prices for every year within the 1990–2008 time period for each country, and used the average of this rental price of one unit of human capital over time as the representative weight for entering human capital into the wealth accounting framework.

The values used in the report are more average national human capital over an 18 year period, and shadow prices at that. We could represent this as a subclass of human capital if needed. human capital itself is quite tricky, especially if it's unitised. Perhaps we could approach it like "the total value generated by a population of employed humans over a time period which corresponds to a working life". What that value is connected to (assets produced?) is not clear right now.

@pdez90 Could you help clarify the following:

1. The "working life" is probably a standard time period, but is this the same for each country? That would seem odd.
2. It's not clear to me if the authors assume that any employed individual, regardless of how long they have left in employment, will generate value for an entire "working life".
3. Should we differentiate between "employed" and "working"? One can be working and generating value without formal employment.

@rlwalls2008 do we have population of humans in PCO? If so, @mark-jensen do we import it? Would it make sense to have population of employed humans and population of unemployed humans in SDGIO (subclass of the PCO population of humans) to support human capital and similar classes? I'm in favour of that right now.

Regarding manufactured captial:

Calculations of manufactured capital are based on the Perpetual Inventory Method (PIM) after setting an initial capital estimate. Once the initial capital level is estimated, changes over time are derived from net capital formation as reported in the system of national accounts. Steady-state estimates are used for the initial calculation, thus assuming that the capital-output ratio of the economy is constant in the long-term.

I don't find the above especially helpful, but I think this could be defined as: "the total value of all assets (continuants with an asset role) produced by manufacturing processes"

Regarding natural capital:

Natural capital assets in the report are comprised of the following five categories: (1) forests, represented by timber and non-timber forest benefits (NTFB); (2) fisheries (only for four countries); (3) fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal); (4) minerals (bauxite, copper, gold, iron, lead, nickel, phosphate, silver, tin, and zinc; and (5) agricultural land. Total asset value is estimated by multiplying the physical amount available of the asset by its corresponding rental price.

ENVO can handle many of the entities noted here, SDGIO will then associate asset roles to them along with some form of value and rental price.

Regarding health capital:

Changes in health capital are captured by extensions or reductions in life expectancy. Such changes are basically analyzed by calculating the years of life remaining of a given population in different time periods, with the population age distribution and the people’s probability of death being the key inputs into the model. As far as the shadow price of health capital is concerned, it is measured by value of a statistical life year.

To do this deeply, we need life expectancy here as well as all the aspects of this calculation. The initial def would be "the sum of the predicted years of life remaining for each individual in a population of humans". The fact that this is tied so closely to model estimates means we should expect more complexity here. The label in the ontology needs thinking: it's really not about health directly.

Key finding 9 is quite illustrative of the need for better handling and appraisal of value in relation to human well-being:

Estimates of inclusive wealth can be improved significantly with better data on the stocks of natural, human, and social capital and their values for human well-being.

As a supplementary note, I find Key Finding 6 (with Figure 2) quite revealing about the IWI's handling of 'sustainability' relative to one focused on managing the natural resource base needed to achieve long-term equilibrium:

Technological innovation and/or oil capital gains outweigh decline in natural capital and damages from climate change, moving a number of countries from an unsustainable to a sustainable trajectory.

For future consideration:

The Adjusted Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI_adj) is a corrected representation of countries’ capital assets, factoring in specific aspects that further affect the size of the productive base of a nation – namely carbon damages, oil capital gains, and total factor productivity. Carbon damages are estimated by multiplying total emissions by social costs, as derived by previous studies. Oil capital gains are estimated at around 5 percent annually from 1990–2008. Total factor productivity measures the change in aggregate output that cannot be explained by the growth rate of observable inputs. This residual in growth accounting can be understood as a proxy variable of technological progress, which is hard to measure directly.

national productive base, carbon damages, oil capital gains, social cost, total factor productivity, observable economic input, technological progress, shadow price, `[interconnected] externality'

[mark-jensen]

mark-jensen Would you be able to create some draft classes based on the thoughts below and your own analysis?

@pbuttigieg Indeed, working on it now. Thanks for the excellent comments above.

[pdez90]

Hi,

Sorry it took me a while to reply.

Goal 4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Target 4.a Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all. 4.a.1 Proportion of schools with access to: (a) electricity; (b) the Internet for pedagogical purposes; (c) computers for pedagogical purposes; (d) adapted infrastructure and materials for students with disabilities; (e) single-sex basic sanitation facilities; and (f) basic handwashing facilities (as per the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All (WASH) indicator definitions) Contacts: Mahesh Pradhan or Rui Zhang in Environmental Education and Training Unit (EETU) DEPI to guide you. Agencies: UNESCO, UNICEF

UNESCO: http://en.unesco.org/post2015/sites/post2015/files/UNESCOConceptNotePost2015_ENG.pdf ' Over approximately the last fifteen years, the concept of inclusive education has evolved towards the idea that all children and young people, despite different cultural, social and learning backgrounds, should have equivalent learning opportunities in all kinds of schools. The focus is on generating inclusive settings, basically implying: (a) respecting, understanding and taking care of cultural, social and individual diversity (education systems, schools and teachers» response to the expectations and needs of students); (b) the provision of equal access to quality education; and (c) close co-ordination with other social policies. This should involve the expectations and demands of stakeholders and social actors. […] Inclusive education can be seen as a process of strengthening the capacity of an education system to reach out to all learners. It is, therefore, an overall principle that should guide all educational policies and practices, starting from the belief that education is a fundamental human right and the foundation for a more just society. This rights-based philosophy is outlined in international declarations, conventions and reports relevant to inclusive education. […] In order to realise this right, the international EFA movement has worked to make quality basic education available to all learners. Inclusive education takes the EFA agenda forward by finding ways of enabling schools and other centres of learning to serve all learners in their communities. It focuses particularly on those who have traditionally been excluded from educational opportunities. […] An inclusive education system improves the efficiency and cost-benefit relationship of education systems and achieving quality EFA. Inclusive education is perceived as an optimization of the use of resources. Schools are likely to be less expensive when all students are educated together, thus giving governments an economic justification to move towards an inclusive education system. (Reference Document, 48th session of the ICE, pp. 8-12)'

UNICEF: http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/education_18613.html 'recognition of the need to work towards 'schools for all' - institutions which include everybody, celebrate differences, support learning, and respond to individual needs''

Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all Agencies: WB, ILO, IRP, OECD

http://www.gsdrc.org/topic-guides/inclusive-growth/concepts-and-definitions/ has a defintion of inclusive growth

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDEBTDEPT/Resources/468980-1218567884549/WhatIsInclusiveGrowth20081230.pdf is the World Bank definition of inclusive growth Rapid and sustained poverty reduction requires inclusive growth that allows people to contribute to and benefit from economic growth

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Think%20Pieces/12_macroeconomics.pdf is a paper written by all the above organizations. Inclusive growth is mentioned: 'For this reason, it is crucial that growth is inclusive – that it provides broadly shared opportunities to accumulate productive assets like education, that it allows people to utilize these assets in growth-enhancing activities and to benefit from such activities, and that it provisions for those that do not benefit directly from growth.'

Goal 9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation Target 9.2 Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and, by 2030, significantly raise industry's share of employment and gross domestic product, in line with national circumstances, and double its share in least developed countries Agencies: WB, UNIDO, ITU

UNIDO defines inclusive industrialization: https://isid.unido.org/about-isid.html :

"Inclusive" in this context means that industrial development must include all countries and all peoples, as well as the private sector, civil society organizations, multinational development institutions, and all parts of the UN system, and offer equal opportunities and an equitable distribution of the benefits of industrialization to all stakeholders. Target 11.3 By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries Agencies: UNHabitat

http://unhabitat.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Habitat-III-Issue-Paper-1_Inclusive-Cities-2.0.pdf: Urbanization provides the potential for new forms of social inclusion, including greater equality, access to services and new opportunities, and engagement and mobilization that reflects the diversity of cities, countries and the globe

Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels Target 16.7 Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels Agencies: UN Women, OHCHR, IPU. UNFPA

http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/post-2015: Peaceful and inclusive societies uphold the rule of law and ensure equal access to justice. They protect people from all forms of violence, including gender-based violence, and control corruption and organized crime. Decision-making at all levels is inclusive and responsive, and fundamental freedoms are upheld. Laws and policies apply without discrimination. During wars or conflict, women often have fewer resources to protect themselves and, with children, frequently make up the majority of displaced and refugee populations. War tactics such as sexual violence specifically target them.

Target 17.19 By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries In UNEP Pushpam is working on the inclusive wealth index

Hope this helps,

Lud

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 6:12 AM, Mark Jensen notifications@github.com wrote:

mark-jensen Would you be able to create some draft classes based on the thoughts below and your own analysis?

@pbuttigieg https://github.com/pbuttigieg Indeed, working on it now. Thanks for the excellent comments above.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/SDG-InterfaceOntology/sdgio/issues/82#issuecomment-184494049 .

Yours Sincerely, Priyanka deSouza

[mark-jensen]

@pdez90 and Lud: This is great help. Thanks!

[pbuttigieg]

@pdez90

@pdez90 and Lud: This is great help. Thanks!

Indeed, this is good material! However, it shows us that "inclusive" (cf. #83) can mean very different things. As Mark noted, this will could be represented as a composed class of all the different kinds of inclusivity we'd define at a more granular level (inclusive education, inclusive growth, inclusive wealth, etc). Until we have more of that in there, we'd have a very preliminary definition like

inclusive =def. 'a [dependent continuant] inhering in a bearer by virtue of that bearer having a range of entities, identified by a policy or regulatory specification, as parts or participants'

The kind of dependent continuant is not so clear to me. If it's a quality, then we can't have an inclusive process (e.g. growth) unless it's just a defined class.

[pbuttigieg]

@mark-jensen could you add this class as a dependent continuant with an editor's note indicating that this has to be moved to a more meaningful superclass following further deliberation? I think my definition is a reasonable start, but will need more refinement too.

[mark-jensen]

@pbuttigieg

wealth is defined here as the total value of all capital assets. What is often discussed in the IWR seems to be measured wealth, or an information artefact which attempts to measure actual wealth by valuing assets. I think we should concern ourself with actual wealth for now

If wealth is to be "total value", then it is an information artifact. Unless value is something different than a measurement.

I think (total) capital assets is what wealth is a measurement of.

[pbuttigieg]

The value of the total capital assests of a given entity, yes. As mentioned in the natural capital thread, we need a "valuation process " which outputs a value estimate (information artefact) to make this clear.

[mark-jensen]

wealth = an information content entity which represents the total value of a person, population or organization's capital assets.

[pbuttigieg]

wealth = an information content entity which represents the total value of a person, population or organization's capital assets.

Perhaps: wealth = a scalar measurement datum which represents the total value of the assets under the control of a person, population, or organisation.

[pbuttigieg]

Maybe OBI's value specification or predicted value would be more relevant than scalar measurement datum, although I think aboutness is needed.

predicted value can be very useful for classes like inclusive wealth #82, as these are mostly just estimates.

[pbuttigieg]

@mark-jensen could you update the class definition after https://github.com/SDG-InterfaceOntology/sdgio/issues/82#issuecomment-185874170 and https://github.com/SDG-InterfaceOntology/sdgio/issues/82#issuecomment-185881524? Not sure if predicted value or value specification is appropriate. I'm leaning towards the former.

[mark-jensen]

@pbuttigieg Holding off on making the change to predicted value until we can discuss further. I don't think an estimate is always the same as a predicted value (in the OBI sense).

[pbuttigieg]

Okay. Prediction process is a bit unclear in the defense, but do rephrase the def: the way it reads juxtaposes wealth and "value of a person ".