IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iem/nosiem/v1y2015id2822000009352019.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

GDP as a measure of economic growth and welfare: brief critical assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Bulin
  • Ionela Baltatescu

Abstract

The purpose of our paper is to briefly assess the role of GDP in measuring growth and welfare or in getting insight into the state of an economy. In this view, we propose a synthetic theoretical and historical review of national accounting, emphasizing the most important ideological underpinnings and theoretical suppositions of GDP for gauging economic growth and welfare. The paper includes: (a) a short historical review of national accounting; (b) a very brief reminder of the methods of measuring GDP; (c) an assessment of GDP’s ideological underpinnings; (d) shortcomings and limitations of GDP in measuring growth and welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Bulin & Ionela Baltatescu, 2015. "GDP as a measure of economic growth and welfare: brief critical assessment," National Strategies Observer (NOS), Institute for World Economy, Romanian Academy, vol. 1.
    • Handle: RePEc:iem:nosiem:v:1:y:2015:id:2822000009352019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://nos.iem.ro/bitstream/handle/123456789/53/Art%203.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Kuznets & Lillian Epstein & Elizabeth Jenks, 1946. "National Income and Its Composition, 1919-1938, Volume II," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kuzn41-3, May.
    2. Barro Robert J, 2009. "Demand Side Voodoo Economics," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-4, February.
    3. Diane Coyle, 2014. "GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10183.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hugh Rockoff, 2019. "On the Controversies behind the Origins of the Federal Economic Statistics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 147-164, Winter.
    2. Martin Feldstein, 2017. "Underestimating the Real Growth of GDP, Personal Income, and Productivity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 145-164, Spring.
    3. V. K. Shrotryia & Shashank Vikram Pratap Singh, 2020. "Measuring Progress Beyond GDP: A Theoretical Perspective," Emerging Economy Studies, International Management Institute, vol. 6(2), pages 143-165, November.
    4. Hugh Rockoff, 2020. "Off to a Good Start: The NBER and the Measurement of National Income," NBER Working Papers 26895, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Moshe Syrquin, 2016. "A Review Essay on GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History by Diane Coyle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 573-588, June.
    6. Christian Awuku-Budu & Dirk van Duym, 2022. "Developing Statistics on the Distribution of State Personal Income: Methodology and Preliminary Results," BEA Working Papers 0197, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    7. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    8. Ravn, Søren Hove, 2014. "Asymmetric monetary policy towards the stock market: A DSGE approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 24-41.
    9. Jože Sambt & Gretchen Donehower & Miroslav Verbič, 2016. "Incorporating household production into the National Transfer Accounts for Slovenia," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 249-267, April.
    10. Marta Santagata & Enrico Ivaldi & Riccardo Soliani, 2019. "Development and Governance in the Ex-Soviet Union: An Empirical Inquiry," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 157-190, January.
    11. Daniel A. Schiffman, 2001. "Determinants of Railroad Capital Structure, 1830-1885," Working Papers 2001-15, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    12. Thomas Philippon, 2015. "Has the US Finance Industry Become Less Efficient? On the Theory and Measurement of Financial Intermediation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1408-1438, April.
    13. Philip E. Graves, 2011. "Appropriate Fiscal Policy over the Business Cycle: Proper Stimulus Policies Can Work," The IUP Journal of Governance and Public Policy, IUP Publications, vol. 0(2), pages 26-32, June.
    14. Thomas Straubhaar, 2021. "Nicht das Ende, sondern der Anfang einer neuen Globalisierung," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 101(11), pages 841-844, November.
    15. Haddad, Eduardo & Araújo, Inácio, 2022. "Regional Science Meets the Past: What Do Coin Finds Tell Us About the Ancient Spatial Economy?," TD NEREUS 2-2022, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    16. Hoff, Jens V. & Rasmussen, Martin M.B. & Sørensen, Peter Birch, 2021. "Barriers and opportunities in developing and implementing a Green GDP," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    17. Siriki Coulibaly & Pierre Guei, 2023. "Qualitative Analysis of West African Economic and Monetary Union Decades’ Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Statistics, Anser Press, vol. 1(2), pages 44-56, August.
    18. Reicher, Christopher Phillip, 2009. "Expectations, monetary policy, and labor markets: lessons from the Great Depression," Kiel Working Papers 1543, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Stephen Malpezzi, 2023. "Housing affordability and responses during times of stress: A preliminary look during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 9-40, January.
    20. Nicholas Oulton, 2018. "GDP and the System of National Accounts: Past, Present and Future," Discussion Papers 1802, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Jun 2018.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    national accounting history; methods of measuring GDP; GDP as a measure of economic growth and welfare; ideological underpinnings of GDP statistic;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C10 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - General
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iem:nosiem:v:1:y:2015:id:2822000009352019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ionela Baltatescu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imacaro.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.