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The people who use GDP are aware of this. The thing is that no one has come up with anything better. It's also worth noting that GDP missed things before that

by sien 11y ago

The people who use GDP are aware of this. The thing is that no one has come up with anything better. It's also worth noting that GDP missed things before that were a lot more important than clock cycles. In 1800 in the US about, say 1/3 of children died before they got to 5. This wasn't captured in GDP. But it's a far bigger deal to watch children die than to play games on a faster computer. Years of healthy life also shot up, mostly prior to 1950 in the developed world. How much is it worth to see your grandchildren grow up because you live longer and healthier and children don't die as much? This all comes from the fantastic book 'The Rise and Fall of American Growth' by Robert Gordon. It might be worth checking out for you. It goes on about what GDP doesn't measure but still uses it to show that productivity isn't rising like it used to and shows the implications of that.

mysterypie 11y ago
> The people who use GDP are aware of this. The thing is that no one has come up with anything better. For what it's worth, I too cannot think of anything better. And good points about all the other things not captured by GDP. But given that GDP is a terrible measure of productivity, shouldn't the result be: We don't know how to measure productivity on a nation scale so let's stop pretending that GDP meaningfully measures it? Thanks for the book recommendation. For anyone else who's interested in checking it out I found chapter 1 available here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10544.html http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10544.html
- patrickk 11y ago
  ""Some of the volume data, such as power and rail freight and even (bank) credit, are interesting because there is less incentive to massage them at the local level. But they reveal only part of the truth, not the entire truth," he said. "This would be a useful measure for steel and cement production. I'm not sure how well it would measure retail sales."" This is what one Chinese official uses to get a better sense of the economy rather than relying on massaged numbers. It's still far from perfect obviously, but I find it interesting. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-wikileaks-idUSTRE6B527D20101206 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-wikileaks-id...
jernfrost 11y ago
True, but why does economists and politicians in America be so singularly obsessed about it? I am from Norway I spent a lot of time reading American news and some of the big differences I notice is that while we in Norway pretty much never talk about GDP and economic growth in public, it is a very central theme in the US. It doesn't mean economics isn't discussed, it is simply different aspects of it. competitiveness, unemployment, salaries is discussed a lot as well as how money should most effectively be used on welfare programs. I am not saying one thing is better than the other. E.g. in Norway there is probably not enough focus on how value is created. But at least the economic debate feels broader.

by sien 11y ago

mysterypie 11y ago

> The people who use GDP are aware of this. The thing is that no one has come up with anything better. For what it's worth, I too cannot think of anything better. And good points about all the other things not captured by GDP. But given that GDP is a terrible measure of productivity, shouldn't the result be: We don't know how to measure productivity on a nation scale so let's stop pretending that GDP meaningfully measures it? Thanks for the book recommendation. For anyone else who's interested in checking it out I found chapter 1 available here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10544.html http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10544.html

patrickk 11y ago
""Some of the volume data, such as power and rail freight and even (bank) credit, are interesting because there is less incentive to massage them at the local level. But they reveal only part of the truth, not the entire truth," he said. "This would be a useful measure for steel and cement production. I'm not sure how well it would measure retail sales."" This is what one Chinese official uses to get a better sense of the economy rather than relying on massaged numbers. It's still far from perfect obviously, but I find it interesting. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-wikileaks-idUSTRE6B527D20101206 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-wikileaks-id...

jernfrost 11y ago

True, but why does economists and politicians in America be so singularly obsessed about it? I am from Norway I spent a lot of time reading American news and some of the big differences I notice is that while we in Norway pretty much never talk about GDP and economic growth in public, it is a very central theme in the US. It doesn't mean economics isn't discussed, it is simply different aspects of it. competitiveness, unemployment, salaries is discussed a lot as well as how money should most effectively be used on welfare programs. I am not saying one thing is better than the other. E.g. in Norway there is probably not enough focus on how value is created. But at least the economic debate feels broader.