5 ms·

So, how much money changes hands off of how much workers work?

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
If this is a good faith question, you can answer it by reference to any good economics text; or even, you know, Wikipedia. But it feels like maybe it's not. Here's another example: you volunteer at a homeless shelter, where you serve food on a soup kitchen line. You have contributed to the GDP of the United States. By all means, feel free to fit this into your preferred framework.
- mcguire 4y ago
  What I'm doing is putting how you describe productivity into the form from the original comment. And I'll stand by that last version: How much money changes hands off of how much workers work? The input to labor productivity is how many hours are worked, correct? And no one is measuring output in terms of the number of bowls of soup produced by homeless shelters; those are converted to dollars based on a current index price. So you have economic activity, how much money changes hands, compared to labor inputs, how much workers work. Simple?
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    Your fundamental confusion is that you keep equating economic activity with "money changing hands", which is wrong.
    - mcguire 4y ago
      Ok, here's a question for you: back in ancient days, most women worked at home. Is taking care of your own children and your own household an economic activity as would count in GDP, for example? Is someone making a bowl of soup for their spouse different from someone making a bowl of soup at a homeless shelter? "GDP measures the market value of the goods and services a nation produces. Unpaid work that people do for themselves and their families isn't traded in the marketplace, so there are no transactions to track. ... The lack of reliable data influenced the decision to leave household production out of GDP in the internationally accepted guidelines for national accounting." (https://www.bea.gov/help/faq/1297 https://www.bea.gov/help/faq/1297) "Economic activity" that does not equate to "money changing hands" in some form, isn't an "economic activity" that counts for GDP or productivity, right?
  - boole1854 4y ago
    > And no one is measuring output in terms of the number of bowls of soup produced by homeless shelters; those are converted to dollars based on a current index price. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does have multiple teams dedicated to documenting how price is related to quantity of output. They don't literally count bowls of soup at every homeless shelter, but they do document millions of price vs quantity measurements on a regular basis. This data is then used in the calculation of productivity.
- jasmer 4y ago
  Yeah I don't think this is true. GDP is an economic measurement, not some kind of intrinsic thing. So you can make a beautiful thing for your home - not GDP. Make it and give it to someone - not GDP either. Pretty sure money has to change hands, or in the case of government, we measure it as $ spent.
  - ummonk 4y ago
    Indeed, the value of volunteering is not counted in US GDP.
- ummonk 4y ago
  This is just factually incorrect. Volunteering at a homeless shelter does not contribute to US GDP.
boole1854 4y ago
No, it's a measure of a weighted average quantity of output of goods and services (not of money) compared with the quantity of labor input.
- mcguire 4y ago
  "Quantity of output goods" is measured in dollars, as mediated by the current price, no?
  - boole1854 4y ago
    Not in general, no. They do count the dollars, but they also measure the dollar-to-quantity ratios of various goods and services. The final productivity measure is based on these adjustments. So if the amount of money that is exchanging hands goes up but the amount of goods and services produced stays the same, then the measured productivity does not go up. You may be thinking about how GDP is calculated, specifically regarding government employees. For this category of spending, the "quantity" measured for the dollars-to-quantity ratio is simply the number of government employees. So as long as the government is hiring more people, the money they spend on those people counts towards real GDP, regardless of what those people are doing. However, government spending is not used in calculating productivity, which measures only certain parts of the private sector where it is possible to also measure output of goods and services instead of relying on measures like 'employee counting'.

If this is a good faith question, you can answer it by reference to any good economics text; or even, you know, Wikipedia. But it feels like maybe it's not. Here's another example: you volunteer at a homeless shelter, where you serve food on a soup kitchen line. You have contributed to the GDP of the United States. By all means, feel free to fit this into your preferred framework.

mcguire 4y ago
What I'm doing is putting how you describe productivity into the form from the original comment. And I'll stand by that last version: How much money changes hands off of how much workers work? The input to labor productivity is how many hours are worked, correct? And no one is measuring output in terms of the number of bowls of soup produced by homeless shelters; those are converted to dollars based on a current index price. So you have economic activity, how much money changes hands, compared to labor inputs, how much workers work. Simple?
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  Your fundamental confusion is that you keep equating economic activity with "money changing hands", which is wrong.
  - mcguire 4y ago
    Ok, here's a question for you: back in ancient days, most women worked at home. Is taking care of your own children and your own household an economic activity as would count in GDP, for example? Is someone making a bowl of soup for their spouse different from someone making a bowl of soup at a homeless shelter? "GDP measures the market value of the goods and services a nation produces. Unpaid work that people do for themselves and their families isn't traded in the marketplace, so there are no transactions to track. ... The lack of reliable data influenced the decision to leave household production out of GDP in the internationally accepted guidelines for national accounting." (https://www.bea.gov/help/faq/1297 https://www.bea.gov/help/faq/1297) "Economic activity" that does not equate to "money changing hands" in some form, isn't an "economic activity" that counts for GDP or productivity, right?
- boole1854 4y ago
  > And no one is measuring output in terms of the number of bowls of soup produced by homeless shelters; those are converted to dollars based on a current index price. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does have multiple teams dedicated to documenting how price is related to quantity of output. They don't literally count bowls of soup at every homeless shelter, but they do document millions of price vs quantity measurements on a regular basis. This data is then used in the calculation of productivity.
jasmer 4y ago
Yeah I don't think this is true. GDP is an economic measurement, not some kind of intrinsic thing. So you can make a beautiful thing for your home - not GDP. Make it and give it to someone - not GDP either. Pretty sure money has to change hands, or in the case of government, we measure it as $ spent.
- ummonk 4y ago
  Indeed, the value of volunteering is not counted in US GDP.
ummonk 4y ago
This is just factually incorrect. Volunteering at a homeless shelter does not contribute to US GDP.

boole1854 4y ago

No, it's a measure of a weighted average quantity of output of goods and services (not of money) compared with the quantity of labor input.

mcguire 4y ago
"Quantity of output goods" is measured in dollars, as mediated by the current price, no?
- boole1854 4y ago
  Not in general, no. They do count the dollars, but they also measure the dollar-to-quantity ratios of various goods and services. The final productivity measure is based on these adjustments. So if the amount of money that is exchanging hands goes up but the amount of goods and services produced stays the same, then the measured productivity does not go up. You may be thinking about how GDP is calculated, specifically regarding government employees. For this category of spending, the "quantity" measured for the dollars-to-quantity ratio is simply the number of government employees. So as long as the government is hiring more people, the money they spend on those people counts towards real GDP, regardless of what those people are doing. However, government spending is not used in calculating productivity, which measures only certain parts of the private sector where it is possible to also measure output of goods and services instead of relying on measures like 'employee counting'.