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Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

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Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#311

Post by defrost »

roenxi wrote: post #309
em500 wrote: post #68

The title/article seems to be a bit of a strawman, AFAICT countries (or their governments / citizens) do not consider the GDP as the one and only measure of national success. Politics are driven by tons of different interest groups (in the broadest sense, ranging from corporate interests, environmental activists, minority representatives, medical or teaching professionals, farmers, retirees living on state pensions,…

> In truth, pretty much nobody really knows for sure what policies actually will increase GDP... Have they tried securing access to large amounts of cheap energy? It is a bit of a win-win because either GDP goes up and case closed or they can sit back and relax in luxury mulling why GDP didn't go up despite massive increases in the general prosperity. Energy isn't the entire story because there also need to be people…

> What else is there? I suppose land ownership.

As in?

The % of pop. that owns land?

The conversion of common parks to land titles for sale?

The spread of skyscrapers to allow the sale of vetically stacked "land"?

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#312

Post by em500 »

misnome wrote: post #304
nitwit005 wrote: post #262

This has been known since the idea was first conceived: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product#Limitat... The real issue is simply that, a lot of the things we want to convert to simple metrics can't be. Suppose I hand you a list of the exact rate each crime in a country was committed, and I ask you to convert that list to a single number, how would you do so? You could assign a weight to each crime, bu…

When I was first taught what GDP was at school we covered that it had limitations and biases, alongside other metrics that attempted to correct this. Apparently my high school teacher should have written a nature paper, instead.

Same here. These well known drawbacks of the GDP measure are covered in a standard Dutch VWO high school economics textbook (comparable to UK GCSE A-level).

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#313

Post by diordiderot »

harry8 wrote: post #279
diordiderot wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO The idea that the the current economic order is the most efficient is... idealistic > "over there" who look and/or talk different that it separately doesn't matter if they starve. The global economy is about expanding the wealth and consumption of the.01% while maintaining a standard of living well enough that the next 20% won't murder them and guard then from the bottom 80% > is growing enough food for 7b peopl…

>The idea that the the current economic order is the most efficient is... idealistic Nope. It's a fact that the current world economy is the most efficient yet seen. Imagination is not implementation. There remains plenty to discuss on how to do it better going forward. >The global economy is about expanding the wealth and consumption of the.01% while maintaining a standard of living well enough that the next 20% won…

I'm not saying we haven't progressed. what I mean to say is that, at the moment, we could have an _even more_ efficient economy if we had more competition and less rent seeking. Less propping up of 'zombie companies' and more 'creative destruction'

> isn't designed

You're right. A more nuanced way to say this is 'emerged' from power structures and incentives. Economics is the study of a world where all political problems have been solved. e.g. a convoluted and overburdening tax system ... not properly managing negative externalities ... money in politics

> the bottom 20% are objectively much better off in terms of food and health than Mill's time.

I agree but 'what got us here, wont get us there' especially if we wind up in a 'distributed tech neo-feudal system' where 'lords' own so much of the means of production (was land now IP stocks etc) they cannot be outcompeted / supplanted without violence.

> percentage lifted out of sickness and poverty.

China?

> I somehow doubt you'd accept him as an authority on anything you didn't like the sound of.

Don't we all have our biases

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#314

Post by diordiderot »

harry8 wrote: post #279
diordiderot wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO The idea that the the current economic order is the most efficient is... idealistic > "over there" who look and/or talk different that it separately doesn't matter if they starve. The global economy is about expanding the wealth and consumption of the.01% while maintaining a standard of living well enough that the next 20% won't murder them and guard then from the bottom 80% > is growing enough food for 7b peopl…

>The idea that the the current economic order is the most efficient is... idealistic Nope. It's a fact that the current world economy is the most efficient yet seen. Imagination is not implementation. There remains plenty to discuss on how to do it better going forward. >The global economy is about expanding the wealth and consumption of the.01% while maintaining a standard of living well enough that the next 20% won…

Also if you're interested worth checking out the cantillon effect

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-cantillon-effect-why-...

I'm no economist but I have a sense that too much capital going to 'capitalists' inflates asset prices without increased productivity/growth/efficiency.

> goes nowhere interesting

:(

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#315

Post by 627467 »

IMO the main limitation preventing GDP from being a much better indicator of national success is due to its inability to show how growth - or more importantly - wealth is distributed. Obviously, wealth distribution is critical part of making progress and comfort more distributed and this is what in fact makes nations more successful than others in long term.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#316

Post by chiefalchemist »

Aunche wrote: post #190
chiefalchemist wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was not how he was campaigning, was it? Nor was it his fault he was born that way. The most difficult attacks to stop are inside jobs. Where he came from doesn't dictate where he was headed. The most difficult attacks to stop are inside jobs

What makes you think that RFK was substantially different from LBJ or any of the other Democrats at the time?

What makes you think he wasn't? That said, assassination is a pretty strong signal for different.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#317

Post by refurb »

lmm wrote: post #289
refurb wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they are equivalent, in aggregate across all purchasers. You aren’t the only buyer, but if they are selling cars someone thinks it’s worth the price . That’s the beauty of free markets - multiple products for different tastes and different perceptions of value. I can go out and choose from a small or large, basic or luxury, fuel efficient or not, large capacity or small. If I don’t think the price is worth…

Even in aggregate, there's a great deal of slippage between the two things. Making a small number of cars for very rich people might attract more revenue than making a large number of cars for regular people, even if the latter would be more useful overall. Manipulative advertising and predatory salespeople might mean you can sell cars for more even if those cars are less useful. A car that pollutes less, or is less…

I’m not sure how making a small number of cars for the ultra rich is “slippage” it sounds like value for specific buyers. You may not like people spending money on it, but you’re not the buyer.

And I don’t buy the predatory advertising idea. People aren’t as stupid as you think and if they’re happy that’s value, if it’s for something you put no value on. I mean hell, Apple is clearly offering “cool in crowd” as value for their products.

And clearly people buy green cars.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#318

Post by eru »

ram4jesus wrote: post #140
strangeattractr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean when you say China fakes its GDP?

Not that I fully believe this, but the claims about Ghost Cities, for example. Infrastructure projects built to increase GDP and industrial activity without clear goals.

The Ghost Cities crop up every once in a while, but they aren't actually a problem. They usually turn into actual cities.

(There are some other problems with Chinese GDP figures, but Ghost Cities aren't among them.)

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#319

Post by Zigurd »

This is one of the papers cited: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Beyond-GDP%3A-Measurin...

The graphs are very interesting, especially the divergence of GDP from GPI in China. While the theory that GDP is a poor measure of delivering real improvement to human lives is believable, the numbers for China may also indicate they may have been cooking the GDP books since about the early 2000s.

Unfortunately there is a lot of anti-China disinfo going around. But untrustworthy data from China is a thing. I wonder if this research will reveal that not only has quality of life stagnated in China, but also the GDP numbers are not as good as has been claimed for over a decade, which affects assessments of sovereign and private debt, etc.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#320

Post by Zigurd »

nostromo wrote: post #62

It's hard to overstate how terrible this idea is. GDP is a concrete measure that is difficult to fake. Once you start arguing about the economic value of volunteering, divorce, income inequality, and crime -- you've opened the door to never being able to trust GDP again. Should we create new metrics to track progress? Sure. Should we stop tracking GDP? No way.

Debatable:

https://www.heritage.org/international-economies/commentary/...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-16/china-s-s...

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