Innovative new approaches for improving GDP measurement to better gauge economic productivity.
Official measures of gross domestic product (GDP) indicate that productivity growth has declined in the United States over the last two decades. This has led to calls for policy changes from pro-business tax reform to stronger antitrust measures. But are our twentieth-century economic methods actually measuring our twenty-first-century productivity?
The Measure of Economies offers a synthesis of the state of knowledge in productivity measurement at a time when many question the accuracy and scope of GDP. With chapters authored by leading economic experts on topics such as the digital economy, health care, and the environment, it highlights the inadequacies of current practices and discusses cutting-edge alternatives.
Pragmatic and forward-facing, The Measure of Economies is an essential resource not only for social scientists, but also for policymakers and business leaders seeking to understand the complexities of economic growth in a time of rapidly evolving technology.
Edited by:
Marshall B. Reinsdorf,
Louise Sheiner
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 28mm
Weight: 626g
ISBN: 9780226836331
ISBN 10: 0226836339
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 16 December 2024
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Editors’ Introduction Marshall B. Reinsdorf and Louise Sheiner 1. GDP as a Measure of Economic Well-Being Karen Dynan and Louise Sheiner 2. The Measurement of Output, Prices, and Productivity: What’s Changed Since the Boskin Commission Brent R. Moulton 3. Intangible Investment: What It Is and Why It Matters Carol Corrado 4. Productivity Measurement: New Goods, Variety, and Quality Change Diane Coyle 5. The Digital Economy and Productivity David M. Byrne 6. Measuring Prices and Productivity in the Health Care Sector Louise Sheiner and David M. Cutler 7. Productivity and the Environmental Accounts Nicholas Z. Muller 8. Modernizing Measurement of Productivity with Nonstandard Data: Opportunities, Challenges and Progress Erica L. Groshen, Michael W. Horrigan, and Christopher Kurz
Marshall B. Reinsdorf is a former senior economist with the International Monetary Fund. Louise Sheiner is a senior fellow at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Reviews for The Measure of Economies: Measuring Productivity in an Age of Technological Change
“Productivity growth is central to improvements in the well-being of a society. In recent years, there have been significant questions about the accuracy of our productivity measures. Sheiner, Reinsdorf, and their collaborators tackle those questions, laying out how the statistical agencies measure productivity, identifying where the problems with the measures lie and—importantly—suggesting possible steps towards improving them.” -- Katharine G. Abraham | University of Maryland “Measuring productivity does not catch the eye of headline writers, which is lamentable since productivity is a vital issue. Reinsdorf, Sheiner, and the all-star team they’ve assembled are to be congratulated on a book that lays out not only the shortcomings in the statistical system, but also its strengths and the obstacles that make improvements so difficult to achieve. This book will, I hope, inspire actions to fix some of the potholes in our current measurement methods.” -- Martin Neil Baily | Brookings Institution
