Transcript Economical development of Hungary and the role of the

Epigraph: A big heap of triviality?!
Economical development of Hungary and
the role of the local municipalities
~ methodological aspects of comparison ~
Dr. László PITLIK, István PETŐ
Szent István University, Gödöllő, Hungary
Municipal officials’ competency and co-operation as a basis for regional
economic development.
Tartu, Estonia
Content of Lecture
Theoretical Background:
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Conventional Approach to Regional Development
Key Expression: Information Society for Providing Objectivity
Legal-based Objectivity in Regional Development
Requirements for IT-based Objectivity
Current Situation in Information/Knowledge Management
Idea of Development = ?
What Would Be NOT Reckoned Disadvantage?
Methodical Thesis:
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Accessibility and Quality of Data
Agriculture – a „Model Student”
Evaluating & Ranking of Objects (Trap of Playometrics)
Component-based Object Comparison for Objectivity – „COCO”
Online Services in Rural Development
(Self-)controlling – Responsibility of Experts
Conventional Approach of
Regional Development
Analysis can be automatized with conventional tools:
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Meta-databases
Time-series (for Hungary)
Share of certain objects (e.g. proportion of counties)
Multidimensional (e.g. radial) charts (cf. Potential Star Method)
Drilling down to municipality level
However, political decisions in Reg. Dev. are still not
normative (see: later)
Situation of municipalities: Making effort to survive between
citizens and „high policy”, without any long-term strategy and
monetary stability
Key Expression: Information Society
for Providing Objectivity
Information sciences (Information/knowledge management)
– philosophy vs. Computer sciences – technology
Resources of information sciences:
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Data
Methodology
Information & Communication Technologies (ICT)
Special (individual) human capabilities
Co-operation among people / groups of people
Legal-based Objectivity in
Regional Development
Role of the National Constitution (from the point of view of
Reg.Dev.): Determining all of the primary rights (e.g. right to health
provision, education).
Exact standards have to be determined (in laws & regulations) in
order to decide; certain objects (e.g. regions, micro-regions) are
disadvantaged or not – supporting normativity.
Objectives of information/knowledge management:
– Determining, measuring, collecting those indicators (e.g. GDP, production per
person), which are able to characterize the disadvantages.
– Working out IT-solutions (e.g. expert systems) from the regulations (using e.g.
special Markup Languages, Artificial Intelligence methods)
Requirements for IT-based Objectivity
Clear regulations are needed:
– which range of data (objects, attributes, options) have to be
handled (meta-database),
– which exact methods (indicators, benchmarks, optima,
ranking, grouping) have to be used in these processes.
For effective utilization (e.g. ranking of regional
tenders), the separated resources (data, methods,
experts, etc.) have to be connected by means of ICT
(e.g. EU-wide broadband initiatives, teleworking).
Current Situation in
Information/Knowledge Management
Necessary databases just partially free, expected dataquality is not guaranteed.
Methods used in comparison of objects (e.g. tenders)
are suffering from subjectivity (e.g. weighting)
There are no real efforts to minimise conflicts in voting
systems (cf. mathematical democracy)
Experts’ reports are not entered in catalogues,
statements/facts are not (cross-)cheked
Idea of Development = ?
Aspects for
information management
Describing past and future
states by means of databases
Modelling the impacts of
decisions
Controlling the efficiency of
decisions (comparing planned
values and facts)
Ensure objectivity
through process control
Aspects for
conventional approach
Minimising damages
Increasing amount of goods &
services
Approaching the optimum /
preserving the equilibrium
Preserving unique (e.g. natural /
cultural) conditions
Saving resources for possible
posterior incidents
Define objectives
have to be realised
What Would Be NOT Reckoned
Disadvantage?
Examples:
Should be made an effort to be 50% of miners women?
Should be made an effort to grow sugar beet also in sodic
soil?
„Sustainability” and „Equilibrium” are not operationable
phenomena?!
An effort developing a new (?) approach
„COCO”
Accessibility and Quality of Data
Citizens, researchers, entrepreneurs can usually access only partial,
not free databases with unsatisfactory IT-support  the principle of
free access to data of general interest in the Constitution of Hungary
(Chapter XII, §61.1)
Official data-providers (national  KSH, international  OECD)
supply users sometimes with poor quality data (there is no balancebased, consistent data-assets)
Expected task of Central Administration: establishing an institute for
central data-assets management (metadatabases, consistency)
References: eGovernment project for Prime Minister’s Office, EU PPP/PSI projects
Agriculture – a „Model Student”
Agricultural policy makers in the EU have been endeavouring
since 1980 to the consolidation of concepts and consistency.
Possible integrating role of IACS: Putting the finance &
accounting system of enterprises on the grounds of EAA 
allowing of the comparison of enterprises
Problem: There is no international agro-economic database –
the (ir)responsibility of researchers
References: IDARA by EU, RENOAAR by ACDI/VOCA, IACS in Hungary
Evaluating & Ranking of Objects –
Trap of Playometrics
Classic case-study: tender evaluation  hazard of
subjective decisions (weighting & scoring of attributes, etc.)
Mathematical correctness of evaluation  illusion
because of the
Phenomenon of playometrics – „dark side of econometrics”:
the modulating of descriptive scales even without any
changes in weighting can cause arbitrary changing in the
ranks.
References: participation in tender evaluating committees
Component-based Object
Comparison for Objectivity – „COCO”
Presumptions:
– More objects with the same structure of attributes are needed.
– Rankable options (called RO, where RO{1..i,j…n}) of each included attribute exist.
– At least one value-category (called VY - price, production, etc.) is needed which is a
separated attribute.
– Options have to be substituted by value-components (called VC, where
0<=VC(i)<=VC(j)<=VY)
Operations:
– Create an estimated value-category (called VYE) for each object, as sum of VCs (1…n)
– Looking for the minimum of VY – VYE for each object.
Results: Value of equilibrium, under- and over-estimation of VY for each
object, without any weighting.
Reference: joint PhD-project with Germany
Online Services in
Rural Development
Main aim: supporting decision making (with time- and
cost-economic solutions)
Main expectation (towards users): giving standardised
input (object-attribute matrix, time series)
Noteworthy functions: forecasting, comparing, datamining, information brokering
Technologies / methods: OLAP, DEA, WAM, expertsystems, statistical methods, URL-catalogues 
ikTAbu (integrated online service)
Reference: ikTAbu by Hungarian Research Found
(Self-)controlling –
Responsibility of Experts
Problem: „accuracy rate” of experts (preliminary
statement of experts vs. posterior events) are not known
Idealistic situation: experts want to / have to record their
„accuracy rate” into a catalogue (a kind of casecollection):
– Experts can use this catalogue as a reference
– Potential users can choose the „best” expert (according to
their expectations)
Reference: eGovernment project for Prime Minister’s Office
Conclusion
Policy-making in Regional / Rural and Business
Development should be carried out in information society
(as far as possible) automatically
as the „climatisation of greenhouses”,
instead of conventional lobby-based enforcing of interests!
All the previous phenomena (objectivity, normativity, dataassets and knowledge management)
should serve this aim
in opposite to monopolising access to data.
Thank you for the attention!
Detailed references concerning
Rural Development can be found in the
full-text document as hyperlinks