The theme of social choice, being able to choose a job, is key to mobility. But mobility is also key to being able to select a job.
In the blogs here about slums, choices of jobs, and exports of materials, we are really talking about free trade. If you ask people their opinions on free trade and sustainability, you can predict what their estimate is of bad trade.
The Bayesian analysis used by Reed Miller's group at MIT did some interesting things, using surveys of experts, seeding "known" information, and then weighting opinions of statistics according to their ability to answer known things correctly. The expert who knows the most about your car is most likely to tell you correctly what is wrong with your car.
What is seriously lacking are surveys of Africans, Chinese, Latinos, living across the colored crayon lines that we have drawn on our maps.
