678 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 39 physical environment, for example). Econometric methods allow for the disaggregation of the error term into its two components: vit is the random component, which represents statistical noise in the production function, and ui in this case represents the signal of social rights compliance; it measures the distance between yit and the frontier. Computing this model with panel data techniques75 produces duty-bearer-specific estimates of the level of welfare basket attainment expected given maximum available resources and duty-bearer-specific estimates of the extent to which there is room for potential improvement. The wider the deviation from the frontier, the greater is the degree of signaled social rights non-compliance. VI. CONCLUSIONS It is hoped that this article has been an exercise in stimulating and advancing the discussion on how to deal with the maximum resources dilemma inherent in the assessment of social rights fulfillment and compliance. It shows that by turning to empirical economics and setting obligations to the production frontier, maximum expected social welfare attainment at different levels of resource availability can be predicted and that a signal of social rights compliance can be interpreted from the difference between the observed level of social welfare attainment and that set by the obligation frontier. By virtue of its compliance-revealing property, the econometric methodology gives strength to the notion that conditionality need not preclude obligations to fulfill social rights from being immediate. Giving meaning to maximum available resources and testing the degree to which the welfare basket is affordable begins to close the hatch through which duty-bearers can escape, and analyzing the variance between expected and actual attainment provides a signal with respect to compliance or violation. The methodology does, however, come with a warning. If and when operationalized, the estimates produced would be just that: a signal. Analyzing the variance between observed and expected social welfare attainment may not always reveal the full social rights compliance picture. One admitted limitation of the econometric method described is that it does not capture or expose anything with respect to how attainment of the welfare basket is distributed. In the case that some individuals are not provided with access to particular social goods, there is no way of assessing whether the process for prioritizing those individuals for whom these goods are provided over those for whom they are not is nondiscriminatory. 75. William H. Greene, Econometric Analysis 343–431 (7th ed., 2011).