Emma Tyler, Chapter 9, Question #4

Chapter 9 of Naked Economics had a focus on measuring the success/failure of country's economies. Wheelan explains that the usual tool for measuring an economy is the GDP or gross domestic product; however, Wheelan also goes on to explain that this is not the most helpful thing to measure. GDP "represents the total value of all goods and services produced in an economy" (193). If an economy's GDP goes up it means that the country is producing a larger percentage of goods and services than it had before, which is a good thing for the prosperity of an economy and an important figure to analyze yearly. But it is not all rainbows and butterflies with GDP. GDP does not truly measure "how well off [people] consider [themselves] to be" (198). The happiest people are not necessarily the most wealthy. GDP measures the amount the economy is growing, but not the actual quantity of happiness/success the citizens of that economy feel. Wheelan recognizes that GDP is flawed and questions why the world can't find a better way of measuring economic progress. Within the next sentence of this question, he comes up with an answer that Marc Miringhoff suggests- a "social report card." A social report card would measure 16 social aspects of the economy (child poverty, crime, affordable housing etc) and give the country an overall grade of how they are doing based on their smaller grades in those categories. Sounds good right? Well some conservative commentators disagree with what should be measured; some economists would rather measure out-of wedlock births, participation in church groups, divorce rates etc. So the social report card, which would probably be implemented by the governmental economic specialists, seems like the perfect solution to solving the economic progress measurement debacle, but officials need to agree upon what must be measured first.