How is the economic score arrived at?

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Illumination
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How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by Illumination »

I have an economic score of -4500 plus, yet Im making tons of money, doing tons of research, and things are rockin along...how is it tabulated? Is it a production thing, or what?
maciekpl
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by maciekpl »

* bump * I'm also baffled by this.
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George Geczy
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by George Geczy »

An excellent question... unfortunately I don't have a correspondingly excellent answer to go with it.

The scores are somewhat arbitrary, and combine a lot of factors into big 'melting pots'. They also happen to be a bit biased towards certain pieces of data.

The economic score does sample a lot of factors - GDP and GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, credit rating, as well as budget income and surplus etc; and also tabulates versus world averages. Unfortunately I do not have at hand the details regarding the weightings of different data elements, which is of course what can make all the difference.

So think of the Economic Score to be like the economic analysts at Fox News - you're never sure what they're saying or where they got their facts from, but they always have an opinion.

-- George.

PS - Sorry to our non-North American visitors if the Fox News reference doesn't mean anything ;)
maciekpl
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by maciekpl »

OK, here are some stats from one of my games (Australia):

GDP - $62,000
Treasury - $200,000,000,000
Debt - $0
Credit Rating - ~190%
Interest Rates - less than 1%
Taxes - 5%
Social Assistance - 85%
Budget Surplus - $1,000,000,000 per day
Inflation - 10%
Unemployment - 4%

And I have the lowest economic score in the game. All other countries have better scores even though their stats aren't even close to mine.
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The_Blind_One
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by The_Blind_One »

prolly ur inflation is too high.

Inflation is way over represented in this game
RotTenno
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by RotTenno »

nah, his inflation is just alright.

i've got like 28%...

i've got more than 7500 eco score though your stats are way better than mine...strange. at least i'm not the worst..even (ressource)rich countries like the UAE or Kazakhstan have less points than i.

@george: the same goes for "experts" in germany and i think for the rest of the world too ;)
vortex79
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by vortex79 »

George Geczy wrote:An excellent question... unfortunately I don't have a correspondingly excellent answer to go with it.

The scores are somewhat arbitrary, and combine a lot of factors into big 'melting pots'. They also happen to be a bit biased towards certain pieces of data.

The economic score does sample a lot of factors - GDP and GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, credit rating, as well as budget income and surplus etc; and also tabulates versus world averages. Unfortunately I do not have at hand the details regarding the weightings of different data elements, which is of course what can make all the difference.

So think of the Economic Score to be like the economic analysts at Fox News - you're never sure what they're saying or where they got their facts from, but they always have an opinion.

-- George.


PS - Sorry to our non-North American visitors if the Fox News reference doesn't mean anything ;)
I think I can actually answer this question finally. I have noticed my scores are higher when I induce deflationary action into my economy while still maintaining profitability. The further lower my production costs go the better my economic score tends to be. This usually involves a lot of infrastructure and supply level engineering to ensure maximized output on my facilities as well as restricting my rates of social subsidy. I find if you keep health care, education, infra, family subsidy, law enforcement at the highest level.. keep social, environmental, and cultural subsidy at the lowest level.. you can induce inflation with high taxes.

On taxes you want the top 4 row of items at max. Keep sales tax at max. Keep pensions, unemployment, and property tax at 0.

So what's the goal here with these arranged settings? Deflation.

Your cultural and environment settings are optional, keeping them high improves world market opinion and domestic approval rating if you want to get re-elected but that's the largest impact I've seen them have is affecting foreign opinion. Personally, I like CBs to rise so folks declare on me instead of the other way around so I keep them cut throat because it also helps achieve my objective.. deflation. This is why I keep those social spending levels low. The environment just makes people outside your state like you and improves your DAR. Spending on it is inflationary if diplomacy and WMA improvement is not a goal. Cultural subs are inflationary and just make your people feel warm and fuzzy about you around election time, only use for that purpose. Social subs are inflationary and only good around election times, they do increase domestic demand, but except for some special situations, it's not our goal.

Why do I keep the others high? Health funding raises population through high birth rates, low death rates. High education spending improves tech development rates and may improve facility outputs. High infra improves military and economic supply rates and are CRITICAL to the economic engine to ensure all facilities are producing at max efficiency. High law funding improves tourism, improving net economic performance with little inflationary effect. Family subsidy increases birth rates. Unlike cultural subsidy which has a marginal impact, it along with health spending increases growth rate. Growth rates are key, the more people you have the lower you can force your labor costs through unemployment risks. Our goal is the highest degree of efficiency in production. We are becoming the sweat shop owners of Supreme Ruler 2020.

Taxes: Top 4 are at the highest to ensure the businesses and people are not subject to "Easy cash" resulting in high domestic demand. I liken this to your unseen federal reserve interest rates. Keep those rates high, keep inflation int he bag. The sales tax is also part of it, so keep it at max also. Pension taxes are likewise part of this equation and I've seen it affect nothing but the rate of inflation and GDP just like the rest of the above, so keep it maxed also.

The other 2 are special. Property taxes deter people from settling in your state. Be a RL Tennessee & have none. Unemployment tax is spent on people who don't work to help them while they're not working. It may keep domestic demand up even when unemployment is high, but that's not our objective.. in fact minimizing domestic demand works in our favor.

Basically the remedy above does several essential things. 1. Keeps money out of the hand of the population 2. Encourages the population to rise despite the bleak economy. 3. Has no other critical impacts on our domestic concerns. 4. May anger other states depending on how utilized, but many people WANT this actively in their games.

Okay, now how to handle pricing: Max out all domestic prices and lock all domestic sales commodities. Place all export rates at just below global market prices.. monitor for fluctuations. Lock all productions at 105% of domestic demand except those at >25% of your production costs in terms of market prices and depending on your nation, only export the top two performers in terms of export margins. Those particular top two performers in terms of margins on export prices, produce and export at max capacity.

If you're not self-sufficient as an economy, begin building structures to make you exactly self-sufficient, no more and no less.

Energy strategy: Destroy all petroleum plants. Favor Hydro over all other power production forms if you have them available except other higher yielding non-resource consuming facilities such as fusion, antimatter, and dark matter. If you can't do this, rely on this order as a fall back: Nuclear, Coal, then Petrol. Ensure areas with these facilities are at maximum possible supply and loyalty and infra structure levels. It may need an airbase/supply depot or several nearby and lots of rail, not road.. rail. It is almost always wisest to build your non-terrain restricted energy facilities INSIDE your original territorial boundaries where loyalty is in your favor. This allows you to benefit from max production from both supply and loyalty margins.

Raw Materials Strategy: Unless your ore, uranium, coal mines, or oil generation facilities are your one of your top two performers in terms of market price/global price, shut any not required to fuel your other facilities at their current production levels and maintain self-sufficiency down. If there is any resource you do not have at least 1 mine of.. say Uranium.. get one and as with the power supply companies try to ensure your raw materials facilities are at MAXIMUM supply and loyalty.

General production strategy: Once you've done this, start migrating any extra-territorial facilities (those outside your original national borders) to within your original starting borders to start taking advantage of loyalty bonuses. Aka, if you're playing the U.S... favor U.S. production locations over external locations wherever possible and ensure they have maximum supply. Prioritize which locations you remove by # of facilities. For example, if I have a single coal mine operating in Mexico, I'd shut it down along with the industrial center that supports it on that particular hex and move it into the United States and try to put the new coal mine on a maximum coal production hex in say VA or WV. Doing so reduces the # of industrial zones I must spend power on and must pay to operate each year, even if maintenance is less than 1 M/zone... I'd rather have 1 group of 6 coal mines versus 6 groups of 1 with 1 industrial zone attached. This is part of cost minimization.. every dollar counts. It takes an enormous attention to detail to induce deflation due to the enormous expenses involved.

Export strategy: Only sell 95% of your production surpluses on all products, save the other 5% daily compounding for a rainy day to account for any variation in supply levels.

This strategy has netted me the highest net economic scores as the region I tend to play.. thus far. That being Kentucky, my home state. I am not sure it is, but I think the relation of deflation to economic score may be the reason as by implementing cost controls you can really inflate your margins in the long run.

The results: You should see unemployment rise. Mine has gone up to as high as 10%. My DAR hovers around 30%, and I can spike it to win elections via the controls mentioned above to maintain democracy status. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT LOSE DEMOCRACY STATUS IF YOU ALREADY ARE ONE. The benefits economically are too significant. You should see production costs fall and deflation begin.. I've even seen my inflation # go negative. I've seen energy prices as low as 188 once I captured the U.S. east seaboard and maxed out my hydro facilities in Maryland/VA.

The benefits of deflation and unemployment are that your economy is more flexible? Got a shortage? Build facilities without too much concern. Want a bigger army? Build those military complexes. Remember to build in moderation or you'll militarily induce inflation. Need $$? Deflation should allow you to spike production occasionally for some very nice margins on trade.. or use diplomacy to trade your surpluses for ridiculous margins.

Additionally, if you've been having a CB problem, this should really upset your neighbors! Anyway, hope you enjoyed my strategy for increasing your econ score and I hope you get it to work for you. How exactly you need to implement it and the priorities you need to use will vary slightly state-to-state, but I use something akin to this with every state.

BTW: If anyone knows any different than what I've described above, please note it so I can attempt variations.
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Darkreaper
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by Darkreaper »

um.. you do know that deflation is bad right? its not the elimination of inflation...
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vortex79
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by vortex79 »

Darkreaper wrote:um.. you do know that deflation is bad right? its not the elimination of inflation...
Deflation can be bad.. it can also be good. It is the reversal of inflation's effects. I run a primarily exporter economy, if you're doing that, inflation can be very bad so must be strongly handled. Doing so increases your margins and the unemployment can actually be a benefit if also used correctly.

It may not be good for my sim citizens, but it is definitely good for my income.
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Darkreaper
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by Darkreaper »

actually from what i understand, inflation and deflation are two separate processes. Inflation being the rise of the cost of goods, and deflation being the devaluing of a nation's currency. Deflation could be considered good in markets that are primarily export based i guess...
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vortex79
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by vortex79 »

You would be wrong. Inflation is actually a sign that a currency is devaluing. Deflation is a sign it is obtaining greater value.

Here's the logic:

When the value of a currency falls, the amount of currency needed to buy the same product rises, therefore.. inflation.

When the value of a currency rises, the amount of currency needed to buy the same product falls, therefore deflation.

The reason the U..S has immense inflation typically is because our dollar has been on persistent downward spiral over the last decade or more due to our domestic monetary policies and rising debts to China. The way you induce deflation is by decreasing domestic money supply, the result is that each currency issue is worth more in the economy because there are fewer of them to buy goods. The way you induce inflation is by printing money or having a money supply glut. This is what our federal reserve is meant to regulate via interest rates and reserve controls.

There are no direct money supply controls in Supreme Ruler 2020, like interest rates, but taxes work a lot like interest rates and if you have them to high, they also reduce money supply by funneling the money into the government coffers and out of domestic circulation, preventing the price of goods from rising. This is true, except when the government spends the money.. if the government spends money, it becomes just as inflationary as if the economy were never taxed.

So to induce deflation, take money, and do not give it to your own people. To induce inflation, build like a mad man and overemploy.

I've come to find my strategy is good except for when international demand for goods is weak, then you need a slightly inflationary economy to make up for the lack of international demand.

How do you give money in Supreme Ruler 2020?:

Any government spending category, including any of the 8 on the social spending bar. Any government building or employment such as through production, the military, or infrastructure such as railroads and roads. Low taxes. Low domestic price barriers/controls.

How do you take money away in Supreme Ruler 2020:

High taxes, high domestic prices on government goods. Low government spending. Little building/expansion. Little military spending.

If someone wants to move this or edit it into Supreme Wiki, I wouldn't care in the slightest. I think it already has an inflation topic though.
Hullu Hevonen
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by Hullu Hevonen »

I usually get this when my tax/automatic trades go on minus, but I can still make moore money by manually selling stuff
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vortex79
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by vortex79 »

I found a good way to deflate without making your trades go minus is to shut down your automatic sell command by setting it to max $ 0 so that your economy only subsists on your own production. However, if you have none of a particular resource, you may have to shut down mfgring related to that resource. Only really able to do that with uranium I find.

In such a case you may as wells scrap your nuke plants and give up on nuclear weapons.
Chaser
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Re: How is the economic score arrived at?

Post by Chaser »

thanks for the detailed strategy. I've implemented it and my inflation is decreasing. :-)
Unemployment is a good thing then, to a certain extent. What % do you recommend unemployment at?
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