Using the data provided ReliefWeb on the Appeals and Funding to Haiti (h/t DataBlog) and the most recent GNP estimates, I decided to do a little “back of the envelope” analysis. With GNP as a proxy for a country’s wealth, the hypothesis is that pledges should roughly be a linear function of wealth, i.e., the more you have the more you can give. Again, this is by no means a complete, or even partially complete analysis, simply a quick exploration of the data; that said, throwing the data into the ggplot2 sausage grinder reveals some interesting features.
A few things to note from the above figure. First, the axises are log-log plots of GNP and pledge amounts in U.S. dollars. Also, country names are sized and colored by their residual from 
Immediately, Norway and Sweden standout as countries that (by this very rough approximation) appear to be contributing above their wealth level, and conversely China and Japan (text overlapping) seem to be under-pledging. Also, though difficult to see, Finland, Switzerland and Spain all fall almost perfectly on the best fit line, while the United States is an extreme outlier.
I will resist editorializing this data, as there are many factors that this is not picking up; most notably, the difference between pledges and committed funds. Also, the data does not include pledges from private or international organizations, which would most certainly alter the plot. A better analysis may be to fit a gravity-like model to this data, where pledges are a function of the distance of Port-au-Prince to another country and the level of trade between Haiti and that country. Gravity models are very popular, and seem relevant to this data.
Automatically Generated Related posts:
Amazing plot Drew! Thanks for sharing!
[Reply]
Since I love to learn new stuff I would be happy if you could also provide the R-script for generating the chart.
[Reply]
Unfortunately the numbers on that site are incomplete and change all the time.
Case in point: http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-donate-83-million-euros-haiti-aid
The Netherlands’ national fundraising day for Haiti has collected 41.2 million euros for the quake-stricken country. As promised, Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders has doubled the amount, so Thursday’s end result is almost 83 million euros.
Might I add, this is not PLEDGED, this is RAISED. Now let’s update that graph…
[Reply]
Euhm .. so i’m Dutch and I take objection to these figures.. We have raised 83 million in funding (http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-donate-83-million-euros-haiti-aid) not 4 million like in the PDF. Just saying..
[Reply]
DutchSpotting and Jillis, I am just the messenger here. I would be very surprised if these numbers did not contain inaccuracies for several other nations in the data set. Unfortunately, our charts are only as good as the available data.
[Reply]
Looks like Canada is at least as generous as Norway and Sweden, although you somehow failed to mention them ;-p
[Reply]
Drew Conway Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
True, though given the difference in GNP among Norway, Sweden and Canada the former seemed more notable.
[Reply]
[...] via (drewconway.com) [...]