Just like the World Bank's Doing Business report has unleashed more vibrant business sectors, benchmarking countries against best practices on gender opportunities could unlock the full productive potential of women and spur growth.
They basically are the market, as defined by a certain index, like the S.& P. 500 or some sector benchmark.
He told MPs that the three jails would now have to meet a new public sector benchmark to reduce costs.
The companies that build indexes, like Morgan Stanley Capital International and Dow Jones, are shaping new sector benchmarks as fast as they can.
During the last 10 turbulent years in the markets, the Alerian M.L.P. index, considered the sector benchmark, generated an average annual total return of 16.7 percent, about twice that of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.
However, even among actively managed sector funds, some managers have made a considerable difference versus specific sector benchmarks and more generic vehicles such as exchange-traded funds, consistently losing less in downdrafts and gaining more in updrafts.
And on the health care front, year after year, according to an independent survey VA services continue to outrank private hospitals in customer satisfaction and out-performed the private sector benchmarks on several widely accepted measures of effective care such as reduction in rates of hospital associated infections where VA is a leader and the private health care industry is struggling.
And for those convinced things are always done better outside government, quality care reports for the last three years indicated the VA has out-performed private sector benchmarks on several widely accepted measures of effective care, such as provision of preventive care, management of chronic conditions, prevention of hospital associated infections, and several aspects of hospital care.
Greece's foreign lenders expressed doubts that the new austerity measures the Greek Parliament passed last week — including a 22 percent cut to the private-sector benchmark minimum wage — would actually be carried out, at least before early national elections as soon as April.
