ZCZC
BCN-02
OECD-ECONOMY-INDICATOR
OECD paper calls for alternative economic measures
PARIS, Nov 27, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Prominent economists called Tuesday for an
alternative measure of economic well-being, arguing in an OECD-backed work
that the current focus on gross domestic product (GDP) is insufficient.
“There is no simple way of representing every aspect of well-being in a
single number in the way GDP describes market economic output,” the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a “short book”
authored by well-known figures within the economic world.
“Subjective well-being measures are critical to assess the non-monetary
costs and benefits of public programmes and policies,” it added.
Steps taken by countries from Ecuador and Scotland to Bhutan and New
Zealand could point to policies that achieve their goals and “help in
restoring people’s trust that public policies can deliver what we all care
about: an equitable and sustainable society.”
“Beyond GDP: Measuring What Counts for Economic and Social Performance” is
a compilation of chapters by economists including Joseph Stiglitz, Angus
Deaton, Martine Durand and Thomas Piketty, some of whom have won Nobel
Prizes, others who influence policy at the OECD or teach at prestigious
universities.
It was officially presented at an OECD statistics forum in Incheon, South
Korea, and calls for a “dashboard of indicators” that displays conditions
faced by ordinary people throughout a complete economic cycle.
Measures limited to GDP and public debt, for example, fail to inform
decision makers about the state of the environment, a population’s general
and economic security, its trust in institutions, or the disparate treatment
of different ethnic or racial groups.
The notion of an “Accountability Day” observed by the Dutch government and
parliament was another initiative welcomed in the work.
While sometimes dismissed as an “anti-growth” agenda, the authors believe
that use of a wider set of economic indicators to address the “Great
Recession” a decade ago “would have led, most likely, to stronger GDP growth
than that actually achieved by most countries in the aftermath of the
crisis.”
The economists urged in addition that indicators be broken down “by age,
gender, disability status, sexual orientation, education and other markers of
social status in order to describe group differences in well-being outcomes.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/1004 hrs