Good neighbours really do matter according to a new study

PA 51/18 Poorer countries with 'bad' neighbours are more likely to perform less well when it comes to human rights according to new research from the University of Nottingham. In the paper, ' Good neighbours matter: economic geography and the diffusion of human rights' published in the journal Spatial Economic Analysis , Professor Todd Landman from the University of Nottingham and his co-authors, use data from a wide range of countries to investigate the geopolitical and economic aspects of human rights performance. The findings show that the human rights performance of individual countries depends (primarily) on their wealth and their proximity to 'good' and 'bad' neighbours. The team not only looked at income levels within countries to assess human rights performance, but also use modelling to look at the impact that good or bad neighbours had on their performance. Their analysis focussed on whether having a good neighbour (in terms of HR performance) affected a country's level of HR; whether the distance from a good neighbour affected a country's level of HR performance; and whether clusters of good HR performers are a result of both their level of wealth and their proximity to good neighbours. Economic trends The team used previous research along with their own data to look at spatial and economic trends in human rights performance across the globe. Using a relatively simple spatial weighting model the team initially compared each country's human rights performance with predicted regression on a weighted average of its neighbour's performance.