GDP is broken. Meet the leaders trying to fix it: by DavidGDawkins
Gross Domestic Product –the production value of goods and services–is a wonderful way to see the landscape of a country’s economic growth, without cloaking the very information we so desperately need to know in technical detail or obscure, floating data.
For the first time, GDP is being disrupted itself, by a new generation of economists proudly capitalist, but aware that a new approach is needed to better capture and understand a more unequal and complex world. But as London rebuilds, the horrid irony of Grenfell , is that the money spent on fixing the damage will eventually turn up in the plus column of the UK’s GDP figure.
It’s a pedant’s dream: if you care about jobs and income–Luxemburg, U.S., Switzerland, Iceland and the U.K rise to the top. Throw a few more variables into play–environment, community, housing–and the U.S. and U.K. plunge, as the small, affluent European countries rise. In the U.S., President Trump boasted of, and benefited from, the strength and ability of the U.S economy to just power on through—10 years of constant growth suggests he might be right. But in reality the growth that’s followed the 2008 Crisis has been slow and low, and there’s a real fear that the U.S. middle classes are neither driving or benefitting from that growth.
Moser adds that “if we use economic indicators alone as proxies for population wellbeing, then policies will remain focused on economies. When we measure human happiness and wellbeing, we are radically changing the paradigm, and focusing attention–and policies to follow, beyond pure economic activity.”
Sanghi and his team tested the idea on “dimly-lit” sub-Saharan Africa. “We did some tests and surprisingly found that night lights do a pretty good job in tracking official GDP numbers. Whether it is a massive contraction of economic activity as in the early 2000s in Zimbabwe or a slight temporary downturn in the late 1990s in Eritrea during the border conflict, the evolution of night lights as observed from space closely follows official GDP.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
I tried a top-grade $240 Olive Wagyu steak to see if it's worth the moneyAs a former food writer, I've eaten a lot of expensive steak. But an A5 Olive Wagyu — a top quality, hard-to-get steak from Japanese cows that are fed toasted olive peels — stood apart from all the others.
Read more »
It's time Republicans tried helping average Americans. That starts with taxing people like me | OpinionJust this week, Senate Republicans demanded that the wealthiest Americans, including me, receive even more tax benefits. Here's the truth: That hasn't improved the economy, and it won't.
Read more »
Ahead by a century, U.S. storms to 100 Pan Am medalsThe United States needed only one week to hit the medal century mark at the Pan ...
Read more »
Peru swimmer withdraws from Pan Am Games after failed testPeruvian swimmer Mauricio Fiol has pulled out of the Pan Am Games after failing ...
Read more »