One Metric to Govern Them All: Producer Support Estimate

OECD's Producer Support Estimate is THE ONE metric to investigate if you are obsessed with a simple, but tricky question: What is the role of Government in Agriculture?

"One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." - Translation of the Inscription found in the Ring

As a recovering independent management consultant with a shady conslutting past (You read it right. It’s not a typo), I have developed over time a healthy allergy to metrics and measurement.

The reasons aren’t hard to fathom.

Metrics have ring-like qualities.

They can be addictive (Who doesn’t want to slay the beast of complexity inside a system?) and often have a strange will of their own. If you don’t pay attention, they can create a spell and transform, for worse, the very system you are trying to manage.

If you don’t believe me, ask the British economist Goodhart who coined Goodhart’s law in 1975 in response to Margaret Thatcher’s trigger-bound monetary policy.

Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.

Here is a plain-speak translation: When a measure beco…