Source: EconLog
by Arnold Kling
“It would be nice to have definitive measures of economic progress. We would like to know whether progress is faster in one country than in another. We would like to know whether progress was faster in one period of time than in another. We would like to know how different policies and institutional arrangements affect progress. … The most commonly used indicator is Gross Domestic Product, reported either as a total amount or on a per capita basis. But GDP data are often quoted in the press or used by economists without much consideration of the problems in constructing the estimates.” (07/07/25)