Monitoring the big impact of Puerto Rico’s population drop.

New measuring sticks needed to track the progress of economy, society; CNE forum to examine myriad effects of migration.

Puerto Rico’s unprecedented decline in population over the past decade will have a lasting impact on the island’s economy and is highlighting concerns over its long-term sustainability.

The population drop recorded this year by the U.S. Census Bureau was the first time in a century it has occurred in Puerto Rico, and it took place as traditional measures of well-being, such as a society’s economic growth rate, are
being questioned as accurate barometers of progress.

“In terms of the sustainability of our society, it is worrying that Puerto Rico has lost population over the past decade,” said Sergio Marxuach, the Center for the New Economy’s (CNE) public policy director. “Population gain or loss through migration will have great effects on the economy, economic development, labor market and demand for government services, among other things.”

The CNE, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank that aims to create a “prosperous, balanced and equitable” economy in Puerto Rico, will dedicate much of its annual economic forum to the migration issue and related themes. The event takes place March 25 at the Caribe Hilton.

University of Puerto Rico professors Jorge Duany, Luz León López and Orlando Sotomayor will lead a panel discussion on the population loss and its impact on Puerto Rico’s social and economic well-being. Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Blair Henry, dean of the New York University School of Business Administration, will discuss the importance of public institutions for economic development.

A society needs robust economic, social and political institutions that allow for the implementation of public policies to meet its objectives, CNE officials said. “This is an urgent theme in Puerto Rico, where we must adapt our institutions to the 21st century and transcend the sterile debate between those who favor allowing only market institutions to resolve all our problems and those who favor government institutions in every area of our lives,” Marxuach said. “For Puerto Rican society to function adequately we need both things, an effective government and markets that function well.”

Dr. Harold Toro, CNE research director, will present findings that show growing inequality within island society based on family finance data. Much of this information was gathered through a detailed survey of consumer finances developed from in-depth interviews with household members across the island.

Arguing against using the performance of gross national product, or GNP, as a barometer of progress, the CNE has been developing a series of broad indicators to measure social progress in Puerto Rico, based on the work being undertaken by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD). The OECD has spent the past several years developing sets of key economic, social and environmental indicators to provide a comprehensive picture of the well-being of a society.

While it is up to each society to define for itself the indicators it wants to use to measure progress, the OECD recommends using broad based measures ranging from fertility rates to work satisfaction, educational investments to life expectancy and the society’s carbon footprint to the level of equality in the distribution of wealth.

“At the conference, we will present some indicators of social progress in Puerto Rico that will help us identify and measure the gap between the society in which we live and the society we all want,” Marxuach said.

BY JOHN MARINO
ma****@*****************pr.com

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