I don't know if this one is better but one alternative is the Genuine Progress Indicator. It measures whether a country's growth has resulted in an improvement of welfare for the people of the country. It covers an area that the GDP doesn't cover and supporters say its more reliable in showing economic progress compared to GDP.
I believe that if you took the real estate index, US manufacturing index and the retail sales index, these three together would show a more conclusive and immediate demonstration of economic growth. All three of these indexes are national, however they can be broken down into regions. I understand that some regions or states have less manufacturing, real estate or even sales, but again these are national. One can combine it all and show a national index of each. I believe because these are such tight components of measurements that it is a better way to look at economic growth. The nation cannot just look at one of these indexes because manufacturing would be a reaction to the consumer’s consumption and that that index would be a delayed reaction. However retail sales index would be an immediate response because it looks at the spending of the consumer monthly. And lastly the real estate index alone cannot be trusted because that includes building and spending and it is looking not at the basic needs of the people it is looking at the luxury side of the consumer’s choices. In conclusion I believe these three indexes would demonstrate a better measure of economic growth.
The suggestion of the Genuine Progress Indicator seems like a great idea and it's one that I have not heard before. GDP is ultimately a set of figures that help people to decide if the past year was "good" or "bad" economically, which is basically trying to measure progress, so that method would save alot of analysis.
I don't know if this would be considered more effective than GDP but there is the concept of "Gross Domestic Happiness" (GDH). It was developed in 1972 and what it does is tries to measure quality of life or social progress in more psychological terms than gross domestic product (GDP). There are flaws in GDP such as the measuring the amount of commerce in a country, but still counting remedial and defensive expenditures (such as the costs of security, police, pollution clean up, etc.) as positive contributions to commerce. In this instance, GDH may be a better measure of showing economic growth than GDP
The human development index (HDI) is a stat that takes literacy, life expectancy, as well as standard of living as determined by GDP per-capita into account. GDP alone does not accurately show growth in a country. In the summer of 2009 the recession in the US was declared over, because GDP went up. However, foreclosures and unemployment rates remained high. The HDI gives a more accurate representation of a country’s progress because it takes multiple factors of human well-being into consideration.
The suggestion of Genuine Progress Indicator sounds like a good idea. GDP is supposed to be a measure of how a country is doing economically and GDP does not cover all the necessary items that it should to fully state if a country did "good" or "bad" the year before. The suggestion of the HDI also sounds good. Maybe if they could come up with a mixture of all these and make a new measure of progress and economic growth than it would be better.
GDP may not be the most efficient form of determining economic growth depending on one's interpretation of an "economy." Advocates of broadening the definition of an economy to a multi-dimensional interpretation that is not so narrowly focused on markets, but social science disciplines that affect modern societies as well, may not find GDP the most applicable measurement. Genuine Progress Indicator as suggested by Jacklyn before sounds like it could be a possible alternative to GDP. Rather than limit measurement to just the market value of all final goods and services produced within one year’s time, additional levels of analyzing progress in areas such as quality of life, education, unemployment, and other such aspects of society can potentially improve understanding of economic growth.
I agree, i feel that GDP could be more effectively used to account for economic growth, if they used it measure the GDH, the fact is that a lot of production in is not taken into account because the model for accounting for GDP dose not give much leeway to other forms of production that are not taken into account in the over all total of GDP.
I believe a good alternative for GDP is GPI or genuine progress indicator, like Andrew suggested. It measures if the growth of a country as well as the production of goods is increasing the well-being of the citizens in the country. GDP only looks at the production of goods and services and does not take into account the overall welfare of the people within the country, thus it is a value alternative.
I'd have to agree along with Andrew for the GPI as the alternative for indicating economic growth. Taking a look at the improvement of welfare for the people can specify much more than GDP can. I can trust the results to be more factual
Seth King Changing something as GDP would be an incredibly difficult procedure, as not only is it the normal process for measuring economic growth for us in the United States, but it is also used in almost every other country in the world. However, i think that if we had to find an alternative, the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare would not be a bad decision. This process would take into account factors such as income distribution and cost, associated with pollution and other unsustainable costs. The idea that sold me for this Index was the factor of income distribution. I feel like this factor could really shine quite a bit of light on to the honesty of the governments involved, Based on the facts of where all the money that they make goes. Corruption and greed could really be exposed using this.
GDP gives indication towards the health of a nation's economy, but there are other statistics that can be beneficial to understanding how well off a nation is. Statistics such a life expectancy and infant mortality rate do not point specifically to the progress of an economy, but I believe them both to be good indicators of a nation's general progress. Similarities can be seen between a struggling nation's (such as Chad, Africa) GDP and its life expectancy. Males in this country are expected to live to age 46 and its GDP is also ranked at the bottom of the globe (125th). Other statistics that can be indicators of a nation's economic progress are literacy rate, population growth rate, and education expenditure %. These can all contribute to a progressing, or failing, economy.
As stated above, I think human development index would be a possibility for a better measure of progress than GDP. The way I see it if life expectancy, standard of living, and literacy are all showing growth that should be a good indication that the entire economy is growing as well. GDP has been difficult to replace over the year but it definitely has its flaws.
Like a few people have said it is going to be really hard for anyone to change how GDP is looked at and how it is the main source of how a country rated. I think it does a decent job at what it was made to do and that it shows everything it needs to show. No one can look at one single statistic and judge a country solely off of that. But if we were to try to change it I agree with many people that the HDI is a good thing to look at. It just brings in many different angles to compare and it is still not too complex.
GDP may be accurate in measuring economic progress in some aspects, but there are so many contributing factors that don't appear in GDP like environmental costs, income distributions, nonmarket production, etc. As a few others have said, a system that takes into account the population's well-being to supplement GDP might be more effective because its an important indicator of economic welfare, but isn't always directly related to a country's overall economic condition. Therefore, maybe something like the Genuine Progress Indicator would be beneficial because it would tell us exactly how much economic growth actually betters the country on a more subjective level.
A system that also includes the populations's well being would be a little more helpful than just GDP. AS many people have stated above the Genuine Progress Indicator would be informative because it would tell people exactly how much economic growth impacts the country. The GPI would show how much welfare is improving in each country as well. However, on a more personal opinion due to specific interest I agree with Hunter the the Gross Domestic Happiness would be an interesting way to measure countrys. I think it would be intersting to see the social progress of each country and not just the economic progress
I think the Human development index (HDI) that Nicholas Hughes brought up would be a better than GDP because it takes GDP and adds literacy and life expectancy to it. GDP can't be the only thing that we base how well our country is doing off of. There are many other factors that we can take into account and HDI does that.
I agree with Nicholas that the human development index is a great addition to the GDP to measure economic growth and progress. Like he stated, the HDI accounts for literacy, standard of living based off of the data from GDP statistics. I do have some concerns with the HDI that I feel if corrected, it would be a very useful tool to analyze overall growth within a country as well as analyze and compare the index on a global scale. One of my concerns is that the HDI does not allow richer countries to improve in certain categories of the ranking system. Each of the three categories don’t allow countries to improve once they have reached the higher ranking in the category, even if the is still room for economic growth and longevity left.
After reading the above posts, I also agree with Nicholas and Vince in that the HDI would be a better measure than GDP because it addresses and measures the economy on more of an eye level with society being that it measures life expectancy and standard of living. When looking into how America is doing economically and socially it is important to look both on a smaller level as well as the birds eye view perspective.
i agree with Andrew that the idea of the Genuine Progress indicator would be a good idea, because it would measure how "good" we have done in regards to welfare for the people of our country. Instead of GDP giving us a numerical value to determine how good or bad our country did that previous year.
I think that Andrew's suggestion of the Genuine Progress Indicator would be a good alternative to the GDP because opposed to spitting out a number that shows only the economic growth, it also shows the overall improvement or decrease in the actual living standards of the people in that particular country. However, like many people have commented, the Human Development Index would have its own benefits as well. I think that the HDI would be a better more beneficial measurement of economic growth because it uses the GDP as well as measurments for standard of living. I think that incorporating the improvement in standard of living is an important aspect when measuring a country's true economic growth and both of these alternative measurments can help us to do this.
I think the main observation (as most have already written about) is that GDP does not measure the well being of people in a country. The people and their standards of living are a huge indicator of the wealth and prosperity of a nation. GDP can be high but drastic differences in living conditions throughout the country may be present. By having a system that measures the difference between the wealthy and the very poor as well as measuring GDP could more accurately portray the growth and well being of an economy and also gives a much more "macro" view of the economy instead of just focusing more on the capital side of an economy.
GDP measures the country's market value of all final goods and services in a year, within its borders. As has been stated before me, HDI measures countries by the human development, and in my opinion it would be a good addition to measuring the progress and economic growth of a country, as opposed to using just HDI or just GDP or some other system on its own. This way we can look at how well the economy of a country is doing based on the market value of all final goods and service, as well as based on the human development of that country to really help us understand why the economy is where it is compared to other countries. Alyona Kostenkova
As previously suggested I believe that that Genuine Progress Indicator is a better indicator of whether or not there has been any economic growth within the nation than GDP. The reason for this is that GDP takes an overall estimate of all production of goods and services within the year and uses this as an indicator. While it may show growth overall, this doesn't show us where the growth his coming from, meaning while there could be a drastic change in a large company or upper class wealth, there could be an overall negative impact on the middle and lower classes that is unseen in this growth.
I would also have to agree with andrew or hunter. I feel that if we were to use those two things instead of GDP that we would be able to tell what we need to fix as an economy and what can stay they same.
I think the Human development index idea that was brought up is a good idea because it uses GDP but includes other important factors that relate to economic well being.
I agree with Jessie that GDP does not reflex the standard of living in a country. In the United States we have a much higher standard of living than any other country. So the Human development index, and the Genuine Progress Indicator(as stated above) would both prove useful in measuring the true economic power of a country.
I feel GPI is an alternative for GDP because it looks at economic activity from the point of view of the impact it has on the individual and society, rather than the impact it has on a bank balance. It will be able to tell us more than if the econmonic year was simply good or bad.
I think HDI is one of alternative efficient measures of progress and economic growth. That's because HDI includes GDPpc and also includes LE, ALR, and CGER. Indeed, GDP is one of efficient measures, but since GDP does not include production of people who live in foreign countries more than 2 years, there are some questions whether it is most efficient measure of progress and economic growth.
the HDI, GPI, GNH are all good proven systems that could be a good substitute for GDP. THe Gini coefficient is another system worth mentioning. Discovered in Italy, it is a mathematical formula that uses wealth and income to determine the comparison between countries.
I think that the Ecological Footprint (EF) would be an effective replacement of GDP in measuring consumption. The EF measures ecological demand and counts how much land (how many earths) it would take to sustain that level of consumption. Basically, the carbon footprint of a country. This would be more accurate than GDP with regard to countries that have already achieved rapid growth such as the U.S., and would also make our world more conscious of our consumer habits and sustainability. Also, with the emphasis of "green" work environments and global warming concerns, I think there would be support worldwide for this method. Growth would be measurable over time, as carbon footprints could be compared to past years.
I agree with Vince that HDI is the best form of measuring growth of a country. It takes all the aspects of GDP and includes factors such as life expectancy education into the mix, which are two important factors in the overall developement of a country. Since innovation seems to lead to the greatest economical developement, education is extremely important. Also, if a country is producing a lot, but has poor life quality, then the country should be penalized when determining their growth.
Another ratio to measure progress is debt-to-GDP ratio which shows how much profit a country makes and how much debt it can pay by its profit. If the debt-to-GDP ratio is low it demonstrates a healthy economy, because there is a profit rate that can pay the debt of a country.
I believe that the current equation that is used in order to find a country's GDP is the best equation that exists. However, I do believe that it can be improved. In my opinion, illegal markets should be added to the equation. The reason for this is because, such markets make a lot of profit, which is used to buy ,sell or produce other products. Therefore, illegal markets should be added to a country's GDP (Even though it sounds like a crazy idea illegal markets do contribute to economic growth).
I agree that the GDP equation is currently the best way to measure economic growth. However, I also agree that by including such things as illegal markets would make the GDP equation a much more accurate indicator of the economic growth in each country, mainly due to the fact that some countries have an extremely large illegal market.
I think that it would be very hard to get rid of GDP completely because any new system would still recognize a lot of the same statistics that GDP does. But I would suggest a system that factors in more aspects of a country. Like population, resources, poverty, and so on. Although those are difficult things to put numbers on.
living in an economy that is measured by GDP would be hard to change.I agree with most of the students with the idea of GPI possibly being a better solution to measure Economic Growth. problems with GDP include failure to measure per capita to indicate an accurate state of living, failure to recognize how goods are distributed among the nation, and also maybe the biggestis the failire to recognize changes in price level.
I think that while GDP includes a lot of necessary information that should be included in calculating economic growth, we aren't accounting for the other things. The Genuine Progress Indicator and the Human Development Index take more of the "personal"things into consideration, but still things like new ideas and price changes aren't being counted. If we could somehow merge all the data and look at economic growth using all the variables, I think we'd get a more accurate result.
I agree with devon that GDP is probably the best indicator of measuring economic wealth. If it has worked so far, then why fix something that isn't broken?
I think the correlation between real GDP and satisfaction indices, particularly in using the UN's Human Development measures such as life expectancy and adult literacy, gives credence to this method of calculating progress and economic growth.
However I see the merit in other students' criticisms that the environmental and educational concerns aren't necessarily included in the way that they deserve, and therefore should not be taken for granted to be improved or declined by this index.
If GDP included personal accounts like household income and thing like that then it would give a more accurate measure of economic growth --oakford gross
I don't know if this one is better but one alternative is the Genuine Progress Indicator. It measures whether a country's growth has resulted in an improvement of welfare for the people of the country. It covers an area that the GDP doesn't cover and supporters say its more reliable in showing economic progress compared to GDP.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Reed
Wonderful suggestion, Andrew--
ReplyDeleteI believe that if you took the real estate index, US manufacturing index and the retail sales index, these three together would show a more conclusive and immediate demonstration of economic growth. All three of these indexes are national, however they can be broken down into regions. I understand that some regions or states have less manufacturing, real estate or even sales, but again these are national. One can combine it all and show a national index of each. I believe because these are such tight components of measurements that it is a better way to look at economic growth. The nation cannot just look at one of these indexes because manufacturing would be a reaction to the consumer’s consumption and that that index would be a delayed reaction. However retail sales index would be an immediate response because it looks at the spending of the consumer monthly. And lastly the real estate index alone cannot be trusted because that includes building and spending and it is looking not at the basic needs of the people it is looking at the luxury side of the consumer’s choices. In conclusion I believe these three indexes would demonstrate a better measure of economic growth.
ReplyDeleteMeghan Kloeber
The suggestion of the Genuine Progress Indicator seems like a great idea and it's one that I have not heard before. GDP is ultimately a set of figures that help people to decide if the past year was "good" or "bad" economically, which is basically trying to measure progress, so that method would save alot of analysis.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this would be considered more effective than GDP but there is the concept of "Gross Domestic Happiness" (GDH). It was developed in 1972 and what it does is tries to measure quality of life or social progress in more psychological terms than gross domestic product (GDP). There are flaws in GDP such as the measuring the amount of commerce in a country, but still counting remedial and defensive expenditures (such as the costs of security, police, pollution clean up, etc.) as positive contributions to commerce. In this instance, GDH may be a better measure of showing economic growth than GDP
ReplyDeleteThe human development index (HDI) is a stat that takes literacy, life expectancy, as well as standard of living as determined by GDP per-capita into account. GDP alone does not accurately show growth in a country. In the summer of 2009 the recession in the US was declared over, because GDP went up. However, foreclosures and unemployment rates remained high. The HDI gives a more accurate representation of a country’s progress because it takes multiple factors of human well-being into consideration.
ReplyDeleteThe suggestion of Genuine Progress Indicator sounds like a good idea. GDP is supposed to be a measure of how a country is doing economically and GDP does not cover all the necessary items that it should to fully state if a country did "good" or "bad" the year before. The suggestion of the HDI also sounds good. Maybe if they could come up with a mixture of all these and make a new measure of progress and economic growth than it would be better.
ReplyDeleteGDP may not be the most efficient form of determining economic growth depending on one's interpretation of an "economy." Advocates of broadening the definition of an economy to a multi-dimensional interpretation that is not so narrowly focused on markets, but social science disciplines that affect modern societies as well, may not find GDP the most applicable measurement. Genuine Progress Indicator as suggested by Jacklyn before sounds like it could be a possible alternative to GDP. Rather than limit measurement to just the market value of all final goods and services produced within one year’s time, additional levels of analyzing progress in areas such as quality of life, education, unemployment, and other such aspects of society can potentially improve understanding of economic growth.
ReplyDeleteI agree, i feel that GDP could be more effectively used to account for economic growth, if they used it measure the GDH, the fact is that a lot of production in is not taken into account because the model for accounting for GDP dose not give much leeway to other forms of production that are not taken into account in the over all total of GDP.
ReplyDeleteI believe a good alternative for GDP is GPI or genuine progress indicator, like Andrew suggested. It measures if the growth of a country as well as the production of goods is increasing the well-being of the citizens in the country. GDP only looks at the production of goods and services and does not take into account the overall welfare of the people within the country, thus it is a value alternative.
ReplyDeleteChelsea Katsch
I'd have to agree along with Andrew for the GPI as the alternative for indicating economic growth. Taking a look at the improvement of welfare for the people can specify much more than GDP can. I can trust the results to be more factual
ReplyDeleteSeth King
ReplyDeleteChanging something as GDP would be an incredibly difficult procedure, as not only is it the normal process for measuring economic growth for us in the United States, but it is also used in almost every other country in the world. However, i think that if we had to find an alternative, the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare would not be a bad decision. This process would take into account factors such as income distribution and cost, associated with pollution and other unsustainable costs. The idea that sold me for this Index was the factor of income distribution. I feel like this factor could really shine quite a bit of light on to the honesty of the governments involved, Based on the facts of where all the money that they make goes. Corruption and greed could really be exposed using this.
GDP gives indication towards the health of a nation's economy, but there are other statistics that can be beneficial to understanding how well off a nation is. Statistics such a life expectancy and infant mortality rate do not point specifically to the progress of an economy, but I believe them both to be good indicators of a nation's general progress. Similarities can be seen between a struggling nation's (such as Chad, Africa) GDP and its life expectancy. Males in this country are expected to live to age 46 and its GDP is also ranked at the bottom of the globe (125th). Other statistics that can be indicators of a nation's economic progress are literacy rate, population growth rate, and education expenditure %. These can all contribute to a progressing, or failing, economy.
ReplyDeleteAs stated above, I think human development index would be a possibility for a better measure of progress than GDP. The way I see it if life expectancy, standard of living, and literacy are all showing growth that should be a good indication that the entire economy is growing as well. GDP has been difficult to replace over the year but it definitely has its flaws.
ReplyDeleteLike a few people have said it is going to be really hard for anyone to change how GDP is looked at and how it is the main source of how a country rated. I think it does a decent job at what it was made to do and that it shows everything it needs to show. No one can look at one single statistic and judge a country solely off of that. But if we were to try to change it I agree with many people that the HDI is a good thing to look at. It just brings in many different angles to compare and it is still not too complex.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGDP may be accurate in measuring economic progress in some aspects, but there are so many contributing factors that don't appear in GDP like environmental costs, income distributions, nonmarket production, etc. As a few others have said, a system that takes into account the population's well-being to supplement GDP might be more effective because its an important indicator of economic welfare, but isn't always directly related to a country's overall economic condition. Therefore, maybe something like the Genuine Progress Indicator would be beneficial because it would tell us exactly how much economic growth actually betters the country on a more subjective level.
ReplyDeleteA system that also includes the populations's well being would be a little more helpful than just GDP. AS many people have stated above the Genuine Progress Indicator would be informative because it would tell people exactly how much economic growth impacts the country. The GPI would show how much welfare is improving in each country as well. However, on a more personal opinion due to specific interest I agree with Hunter the the Gross Domestic Happiness would be an interesting way to measure countrys. I think it would be intersting to see the social progress of each country and not just the economic progress
ReplyDeleteI think the Human development index (HDI) that Nicholas Hughes brought up would be a better than GDP because it takes GDP and adds literacy and life expectancy to it. GDP can't be the only thing that we base how well our country is doing off of. There are many other factors that we can take into account and HDI does that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicholas that the human development index is a great addition to the GDP to measure economic growth and progress. Like he stated, the HDI accounts for literacy, standard of living based off of the data from GDP statistics. I do have some concerns with the HDI that I feel if corrected, it would be a very useful tool to analyze overall growth within a country as well as analyze and compare the index on a global scale. One of my concerns is that the HDI does not allow richer countries to improve in certain categories of the ranking system. Each of the three categories don’t allow countries to improve once they have reached the higher ranking in the category, even if the is still room for economic growth and longevity left.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the above posts, I also agree with Nicholas and Vince in that the HDI would be a better measure than GDP because it addresses and measures the economy on more of an eye level with society being that it measures life expectancy and standard of living. When looking into how America is doing economically and socially it is important to look both on a smaller level as well as the birds eye view perspective.
ReplyDeletei agree with Andrew that the idea of the Genuine Progress indicator would be a good idea, because it would measure how "good" we have done in regards to welfare for the people of our country. Instead of GDP giving us a numerical value to determine how good or bad our country did that previous year.
ReplyDeleteI think that Andrew's suggestion of the Genuine Progress Indicator would be a good alternative to the GDP because opposed to spitting out a number that shows only the economic growth, it also shows the overall improvement or decrease in the actual living standards of the people in that particular country. However, like many people have commented, the Human Development Index would have its own benefits as well. I think that the HDI would be a better more beneficial measurement of economic growth because it uses the GDP as well as measurments for standard of living. I think that incorporating the improvement in standard of living is an important aspect when measuring a country's true economic growth and both of these alternative measurments can help us to do this.
ReplyDeleteI think the main observation (as most have already written about) is that GDP does not measure the well being of people in a country. The people and their standards of living are a huge indicator of the wealth and prosperity of a nation. GDP can be high but drastic differences in living conditions throughout the country may be present. By having a system that measures the difference between the wealthy and the very poor as well as measuring GDP could more accurately portray the growth and well being of an economy and also gives a much more "macro" view of the economy instead of just focusing more on the capital side of an economy.
ReplyDeleteGDP measures the country's market value of all final goods and services in a year, within its borders. As has been stated before me, HDI measures countries by the human development, and in my opinion it would be a good addition to measuring the progress and economic growth of a country, as opposed to using just HDI or just GDP or some other system on its own. This way we can look at how well the economy of a country is doing based on the market value of all final goods and service, as well as based on the human development of that country to really help us understand why the economy is where it is compared to other countries.
ReplyDeleteAlyona Kostenkova
As previously suggested I believe that that Genuine Progress Indicator is a better indicator of whether or not there has been any economic growth within the nation than GDP. The reason for this is that GDP takes an overall estimate of all production of goods and services within the year and uses this as an indicator. While it may show growth overall, this doesn't show us where the growth his coming from, meaning while there could be a drastic change in a large company or upper class wealth, there could be an overall negative impact on the middle and lower classes that is unseen in this growth.
ReplyDeleteI would also have to agree with andrew or hunter. I feel that if we were to use those two things instead of GDP that we would be able to tell what we need to fix as an economy and what can stay they same.
ReplyDeleteI think the Human development index idea that was brought up is a good idea because it uses GDP but includes other important factors that relate to economic well being.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessie that GDP does not reflex the standard of living in a country. In the United States we have a much higher standard of living than any other country. So the Human development index, and the Genuine Progress Indicator(as stated above) would both prove useful in measuring the true economic power of a country.
ReplyDeleteI feel GPI is an alternative for GDP because it looks at economic activity from the point of view of the impact it has on the individual and society, rather than the impact it has on a bank balance. It will be able to tell us more than if the econmonic year was simply good or bad.
ReplyDeleteI think HDI is one of alternative efficient measures of progress and economic growth. That's because HDI includes GDPpc and also includes LE, ALR, and CGER. Indeed, GDP is one of efficient measures, but since GDP does not include production of people who live in foreign countries more than 2 years, there are some questions whether it is most efficient measure of progress and economic growth.
ReplyDeletethe HDI, GPI, GNH are all good proven systems that could be a good substitute for GDP. THe Gini coefficient is another system worth mentioning. Discovered in Italy, it is a mathematical formula that uses wealth and income to determine the comparison between countries.
ReplyDeleteWonderful ideas and exchanges here... keep it up!
ReplyDeleteI think life expectancy, death rate and life rate are more accurate than gdp, because it describes what basic services are available to the people
ReplyDeleteI think that the Ecological Footprint (EF) would be an effective replacement of GDP in measuring consumption. The EF measures ecological demand and counts how much land (how many earths) it would take to sustain that level of consumption. Basically, the carbon footprint of a country. This would be more accurate than GDP with regard to countries that have already achieved rapid growth such as the U.S., and would also make our world more conscious of our consumer habits and sustainability. Also, with the emphasis of "green" work environments and global warming concerns, I think there would be support worldwide for this method. Growth would be measurable over time, as carbon footprints could be compared to past years.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Vince that HDI is the best form of measuring growth of a country. It takes all the aspects of GDP and includes factors such as life expectancy education into the mix, which are two important factors in the overall developement of a country. Since innovation seems to lead to the greatest economical developement, education is extremely important. Also, if a country is producing a lot, but has poor life quality, then the country should be penalized when determining their growth.
ReplyDeleteWow, I am impressed with this group...
ReplyDeleteAnother ratio to measure progress is debt-to-GDP ratio which shows how much profit a country makes and how much debt it can pay by its profit. If the debt-to-GDP ratio is low it demonstrates a healthy economy, because there is a profit rate that can pay the debt of a country.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the current equation that is used in order to find a country's GDP is the best equation that exists. However, I do believe that it can be improved. In my opinion, illegal markets should be added to the equation. The reason for this is because, such markets make a lot of profit, which is used to buy ,sell or produce other products. Therefore, illegal markets should be added to a country's GDP (Even though it sounds like a crazy idea illegal markets do contribute to economic growth).
ReplyDeleteI agree that the GDP equation is currently the best way to measure economic growth. However, I also agree that by including such things as illegal markets would make the GDP equation a much more accurate indicator of the economic growth in each country, mainly due to the fact that some countries have an extremely large illegal market.
ReplyDeleteI think that it would be very hard to get rid of GDP completely because any new system would still recognize a lot of the same statistics that GDP does. But I would suggest a system that factors in more aspects of a country. Like population, resources, poverty, and so on. Although those are difficult things to put numbers on.
ReplyDeleteliving in an economy that is measured by GDP would be hard to change.I agree with most of the students with the idea of GPI possibly being a better solution to measure Economic Growth. problems with GDP include failure to measure per capita to indicate an accurate state of living, failure to recognize how goods are distributed among the nation, and also maybe the biggestis the failire to recognize changes in price level.
ReplyDeleteI think that while GDP includes a lot of necessary information that should be included in calculating economic growth, we aren't accounting for the other things. The Genuine Progress Indicator and the Human Development Index take more of the "personal"things into consideration, but still things like new ideas and price changes aren't being counted. If we could somehow merge all the data and look at economic growth using all the variables, I think we'd get a more accurate result.
ReplyDeleteI think GDP per capita is the best way to measure wealth because its measures the average income per person
ReplyDeleteI agree with devon that GDP is probably the best indicator of measuring economic wealth. If it has worked so far, then why fix something that isn't broken?
ReplyDeletehttp://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/in-defense-of-gdp/?scp=2&sq=gdp&st=Search
ReplyDeleteI think the correlation between real GDP and satisfaction indices, particularly in using the UN's Human Development measures such as life expectancy and adult literacy, gives credence to this method of calculating progress and economic growth.
However I see the merit in other students' criticisms that the environmental and educational concerns aren't necessarily included in the way that they deserve, and therefore should not be taken for granted to be improved or declined by this index.
If GDP included personal accounts like household income and thing like that then it would give a more accurate measure of economic growth --oakford gross
ReplyDelete