[1010G]【决战2010G economist阅读贴】by 悦微微志燮

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Debate: GDP

The moderator（调解人，仲裁人）'s opening remarks

Apr 20th 2010 | Patrick Lane

Finding ways to improve humanity's living standards is the point of economics. Having a good measure of living standards, you may think, is therefore pretty fundamental to the discipline. For decades economists have turned to gross domestic product (GDP) when they want an estimate of how well off（富有的） people are. By （为什么要加by呢？）how much are Americans better off than Indians, or than their parents' generation? Chances are the answer will start with GDP.（怎么翻译？）

GDP is really a measure of an economy's output, valued at market prices (to the extent that you have them). As societies produce more, and therefore earn more, their material well-being rises. So it is no surprise that so many economists and official statisticians broadly accept GDP as a measure of living standards.

It isn't the only measure. Even before the recent recession（衰退）, a lot of debate over American living standards was based not on GDP, which was growing healthily¬, but on median incomes, which were not: the point was that national output was growing, but that its fruits were not being evenly shared. It doesn't cover everything: not all the things that we value are bought and sold in the marketplace. But when economists want to measure the living standards of whole societies, GDP is where they usually start.

That said, economists and statisticians have been debating for years whether GDP measures what truly matters. It may capture material wealth, broadly, but is that enough? If it is not enough, with what should it be replaced—or, more likely, supplemented? With assessments of the environment? Measures of people's health? Estimates of their happiness? And how might all these different aspects be combined? If some new measure is closely correlated with（相关联） GDP, then GDP,
though imperfect, may be good enough. If it is not, then focusing on GDP could be an error of more than just measurement: governments that pursue GDP growth may be making their citizens worse off than they might be.

The Economist's latest online debate is intended to wrestle with（努力克服）these questions. Andrew Oswald, of the University of Warwick, is proposing the motion（提议） that "GDP growth is a poor measure of improving living standards". Opposing him is Steven Landefeld, director of the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which produces America's national income and product accounts, of which GDP is a prominent（杰出的） feature.

Mr Oswald's starting point is a report published last year by a commission chaired by（主持） Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economics laureate. The Stiglitz commission (of which Mr Oswald was a member, and which was written about in The Economist last September argued that official statistics should shift away from measuring production to measuring "well-being". Mr Oswald points to two pieces of evidence in particular: the Easterlin Paradox, the finding that increasing wealth does not make countries happier; and global warming, which is a sign that people should produce less and enjoy the planet more.

Mr Landefeld remarks that GDP was not intended to be a comprehensive measure of society's well-being. Even so, he says, it has stood up well as a measure of living standards. Nothing has bettered it yet. That isn't to say that GDP can't be improved, though—and Mr Landefeld points to ways in which the BEA has been trying to bring that about. He too notes the conclusions of Mr Stiglitz's commission.

This promises to be a lively and enjoyable debate on an important subject: how much use is GDP in measuring how well off people are? Mr Oswald and Mr Landefeld have set out what they think. I'm glad that we have two such prominent people to lead the debate. And I'm looking forward to the next round of arguments and to what you, on the floor of our online chamber（室）, have to say.

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The proposer's opening remarks
Apr 20th 2010 | Andrew Oswald   

"A … key message, and unifying（使联合，统一） theme of the report, is that the time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people's well-being."
(Executive Summary: Stiglitz Commission Report)
GDP is a gravely dated pursuit. It is time to listen to the Stiglitz Report.
The first reason is the evidence known as the Easterlin Paradox(底下注释) (the empirical(经验主义的) finding that countries do not become happier as they grow wealthier). The second reason is that global warming means it is necessary for Homo sapiens(智人,现代人) to make fewer things rather than more, to travel less except on their feet, to lean on the direct energy of the sun and water rather than on the smashed fuel of buried trees, to value tranquil beauty more and 160mph motor cars less.
(注释: The Easterlin Paradox is a key concept in happiness economics. It is named for economist Richard Easterlin who discussed the factors contributing to happiness in the 1974 paper "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot(命运)? Some Empirical Evidence."[1] Easterlin found that within a given country people with higher incomes are more likely to report being happy. However, in international comparisons the average reported level of happiness does not vary much with national income per person, at least for countries with income sufficient to meet basic needs. Similarly, although income per person rose steadily in the United States between 1946 and 1970, average reported happiness showed no long-term trend and declined between 1960 and 1970.
This concept has recently[when?] been revived by Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick, driving media interest in the topic. Recent research has utilised(利用) many different forms of measuring happiness, including biological measures, showing similar patterns of results. This goes some way to answering the problems of self-rated happiness.
The implication for government policy is that once basic needs are met, policy should focus not on economic growth or GDP, but rather on increasing life satisfaction or GNH.
In 2003 Ruut Veenhoven and Michael Hagerty published a new analysis based on including various sources of data, and their conclusion was that there is no paradox and countries get indeed happier with increasing income.[2] In his reply Easterlin maintained his position, pointing that the critics were using inadequate(不够充足的) data.[3]
In 2008, economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson, both of the University of Pennsylvania, published a paper where they reassessed(再批评) the Easterlin paradox using new time-series(时间序列) data. They conclude like Veenhoven et al. that, contrary to Easterlin's claim, increases in absolute income are clearly linked to increased self-reported happiness, for both individual people and whole countries.[2][4][5][6] The statistical relationship demonstrated is between happiness and the logarithm(对数) of absolute income, suggesting that above a certain point, happiness increases more slowly than income, but no "saturation(饱和) point" is ever reached. The study provides evidence that happiness is determined not only by relative income, but also by absolute income. That is in contrast to an extreme understanding of the hedonic treadmill(享乐适应症) theory where "keeping up with the Joneses(紧跟攀比)" is the only determinant of behavior.)

These arguments are key parts of the recent Stiglitz Report.
1.        Life is now more complex and servicesdominate(占首要地位) ("The time has come to adapt our system of measurement … to better reflect the structural changes which have characterised the evolution of modern economies.")
2.        We, as a society, need to measure well-being per se(本身). ("A … unifying theme of the report is that the time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people's well-being.")
3.        Official government statistics should blend(混合) objective and subjective well-being data. ("Statistical offices shouldincorporate(合并) questions to capture people's life evaluations, hedonic(享乐的) experiences and priorities(优先) in their own survey.")
4.        Sustainability(可持续) must be a criterion. ("Sustainability assessment requires a well-identified dashboard(仪表盘) of indicators … the components(组成部分) of this dashboard should be … interpretable as variations of some underlying(含蓄的,潜在的) "stocks".)
I am optimistic. Eventually the green movement will discover the data of the Easterlin Paradox, named after Richard Easterlin, a famous Californian economist, and also become aware of the statistical evidence on declining emotional prosperity(兴旺,繁荣) that I describe below. Although fine young scholars like Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers doubt the veracity(真实性) of it, they are heavily outnumbered(数量上超过): the weight of published evidence is in line with(与…一致) Mr Easterlin's paradox. Moreover, Ms Stevenson and Mr Wolfers themselves agree that America, perhaps the iconic(图像的) GDP-chasing(追逐) nation, is not becoming happier through time.
If we look at broader measures of psychological well-being, the newest longitudinal(经线的,纵向的,长久的) research suggests there are reasons to be more pessimistic than Easterlin. Although further research evidence needs to be collected, this is what we currently know.
Worryingly, emotional prosperity and mental health appear from the latest data to be getting worse through time. This disturbing conclusion emerges from these seven studies:
•        Sacker and Wiggins (2002)
•        Hodiamont et al. (2005)
•        Verhaak et al. (2005)
•        Green and Tsitsianis (2005)
•        Wauterickx and Bracke (2005)
•        Oswald and Powdthavee (2007)
•        Sweeting et al. (2009)
Why? We are not yet certain. But, first, humans are animals of comparison (some of the newest evidence, from brain scans, is reported in Fliessbach et al., 2007). What I want subconsciously(下意识的) is to have three zoomy(利用促景拍摄的) BMWs and for my colleagues in the office corridor(走廊) at work to have mere rusting(铁锈), spluttering(溅射) Fords. Unfortunately, the tide of economic growth lifts all boats, so where having threeglamorous(迷人的) cars was unusual, eventually it becomes the norm, and any relative gains are thereby neutralised. Second, people choose things—such as high-pressure kinds of work and long commutes(vi.乘车上下班 vt.减(刑)；折合 n.上下班交通) away from their families and their dogs and their fishing buddies(伙伴)—that, despite what they think, will often not make them happier. Economists have ignored the research on "affective forecasting mistakes" by psychologists like Daniel Gilbert; they need to wake up to it.
Unsurprisingly, the citizens of the rich nations find it difficult to grasp that higher gross domestic product from this point onwards will not make society happier. Like people in earlier times who could not conceive of(构想) themselves as creaturesglued(粘贴) by gravity onto a spherical(球状的) planet, they trust their intuitions(直觉) (because as individuals they like to become richer and assume whole countries must be the same). One cannot blame them. But the evidence shows they are wrong.
As an undergraduate, I was taught that economics is a social science concerned with the efficient allocation(分配) of scarce（缺乏的） resources. In 2010, a better definition is needed. Economics is a social science concerned with the way to allocate plentiful resources to maximise（尽量增大） a society's emotional prosperity and mental health.
A gravely dated pursuit.

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The opposition's opening remarks
Apr 20th 2010 | Steve Landefeld   

Gross domestic product (GDP) is a key measure of a country's economic activity—the purpose for which it was designed. It was not designed to be, nor should be regarded as, a comprehensive measure of society's well-being. Nonetheless, it has also proven useful as a gauge(测量仪表) of an economy's capacity to improve living standards. It was a catastrophic(灾难的,悲惨的) decline in living standards that prompted the development of national(推动国家的发展), or GDP, accounts. Trying to design policies in the 1930s to combat the Great Depression, President Roosevelt had only such sketchy(粗略的) data as stock prices, freight car(货车) loadings and incomplete indices(目录,index的复数形式) of industrial production on which to rely. In response, the US Department of Commerce developed a set of national economic accounts that for the first time provided a comprehensive framework to guide policy decisions to assist the millions of people who were out of work.
GDP, and the broader set of national income, product and wealth accounts, has stood the test time and no other measure has proven a worthy alternative. Simon Kuznets, one of the early architects of the accounts, in 1941 recognised the limitations of focusing on market activities and excluding household production and a broad range of other non-market activities and assets that have productive value or yield satisfaction. Yet 75 years and lots of research later, there is no broader social measurement tool that officials would agree is valid and useful.
It would, therefore, seem irresponsible to abandon the most comprehensive and reliable system currently available to tell us how a society is faring（进展，过活） economically. GDP may not be a complete measure of improving living standards, but that does not make it a poor one, especially when considering what could possibly replace it today.
There is, of course, room to improve GDP through better measuring of the distribution of the gains from economic growth and the sustainability of that growth, and selected measures of non-market activities that affect the economy—and these concepts have merit（价值）. Rather than replacing GDP, the goal might be extending and supplementing GDP and the national accounts, rather than their replacement.
Over time the national accounts have been constantly updated and extended to address changes in the economy and to keep them relevant, and many of the measurement issues raised in the current debate can be addressed within the context of these accounts. Yet extensions of the national accounts cannot be allowed to subject（使服从） a critical tool for economic policy to uncertainty. Past efforts to expand conventional（普通的，常规的） GDP have foundered（沉没，失败） on the inevitable（不可避免的） problems of subjectivity（主观性，主观主义） and uncertainty inherent（内在的，固有的） in measuring happiness, household work and other non-market activities. Critics rightly fear that the inclusion of such uncertain and subjective values in GDP will seriously diminish（变小，减少） the essential role of the national accounts to financial markets, central banks, tax authorities（权威，官方，当局） and governments worldwide in measuring and managing the market economy.
Much work has focused on how to successfully broaden the utility（功用，效用） of GDP, while preserving its core integrity（正直，完整）. Several National Academy of Sciences studies on accounting for the environment (Nordhaus and Kokkelenberg, eds, 1999) and non-market production (Abraham and Mackie, eds, 2005), as well as the System of National Accounts (1993) guidelines for compiling（编制） GDP, have concluded that an expansion of the GDP accounts should take place in supplemental, or satellite, accounts that extend their scope without reducing the usefulness of the core GDP accounts. They also conclude that such an expansion should focus on economic aspects of non-market and near-market activities—such as energy and the economy's use of natural resources, the impact of investments in research and development (R&D), health care, or education—and not attempt to measure the welfare effect of such interactions（相互作用）.
Recognising the concerns of subjectivity and uncertainty, the focus should remain on creating "new" estimates within the framework of the existing accounts. For example, the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission (2009), which explored expanded welfare measures, has suggested a number of ways that "classical GDP issues" can be addressed within existing GDP accounts or through an extension and improvement of measures included in existing accounts.
The US Bureau of Economic Analysis focuses on just such improvements, and President Obama this year proposed extensions within the scope of the existing accounts that would provide new measures of:
how growth in income is distributed across households, other sectors and regions;
the sustainability of trends in saving, investment, asset prices and other key variables important to understanding business cycles（循环）, economic growth and living standards.  
There are, however, limits to what can reasonably be included in GDP. For many years the problem has not been with GDP, but rather the singular（突出的） focus on GDP alone as a measure of society's welfare. Many non-market measures of welfare may be better included in such measures as the newly authorised US National Academies Key National Indicators System.
These and other efforts in the coming years will lead to a more inclusive set of measurement tools that will enhance our understanding of countries' standards of living. This progress is inevitable, but it does not render current GDP data inadequate. GDP will continue to play a crucial role in measuring social progress in and among countries.

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The moderator's opening remarks
May 4th 2010 | Mr Saugato Datta   

The economic case for free trade is straightforwarda（正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的）. Trade allows the global economy to do more with the resources, skills, and technology at its disposal（排列，布置） than would be possible if countries were to operate（操作，经营） in isolation（隔离）. Opening up to trade lets countries shift their patterns of production, making more of what they are relatively good at producing. They sell abroad the part of their output that their own people do not want, and import things they do want that are not domestically produced at lower prices than if they were to try to make those things themselves. Indeed, the fruits of trade are on the shelves of shops around the world. When trade dries up, as it did last year as a result of the economic crisis, it causes palpable（易察觉的） pain in the form of shuttered（百叶窗） factories and unemployed workers. And few would doubt that at least part of the dramatic growth of trade in the post-war era has been because of a progressive lowering of trade barriers.
Yet it is hard, nowadays, to find too many people who wholeheartedly espouse（支持，拥护） the cause of further liberalising（开放） trade. True, the leaders of the world's major economies dutifully（忠实的） trot（快步走） out the requisite（必需品） promise about completing the seemingly interminable（没完没了的） Doha？？ round of multilateral（多国的，多边的） trade talks and abjuring（誓绝） protectionist（保护贸易论的） measures each time they meet. Despite this, the political will for making trade freer seems almost non-existent.  Part of the reason for this is that the benefits of trade are believed to be uneven（不平坦的）. Some regions and some groups within them are seen as cornering all or most of the gains. Others—autoworkers in America or call-centre employees in Ireland, for instance—are seen mainly as losers. Trade, the argument goes, is fundamentally unfair, both to rich-country workers who see their jobs shipped off to China and the workers in China who must do those jobs for a fraction（小部分） of the original workers' wages, and under conditions that the former would shudder（颤栗） to accept. Instead of concentrating on more and more open trade, the argument goes, it is more important to deal with trade's inherent unfairness.  
Our latest online debate will tackle（对付，交涉） this tension between freedom and fairness and try to resolve（解决） whether action on one front is more important, and what forms such action might take. Proposing the motion, Ngaire Woods from Oxford University suggests that making trade fairer "is important to avert（避免） a further public backlash（激烈反应，强烈反对） against trade". She argues that both the outcomes and the processes of trade need to be made fairer. At the same time, as she notes, "fair trade can be used as a Trojan horse for protectionist arguments".
Her opponent（反对者） in this debate, Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, would agree with that last statement. Where the benefits of free trade are obvious, Mr Bhagwati argues, the merits of fairer trade—or indeed, just what is meant by this—are nebulous（模糊不清的）0at best and thinly disguised（伪装） protectionism at worst. He puts forward three possible ways to define fair trade, and argues that in each case, "making trade fairer" will have malign effects, whereas "making trade freer" will make us better off".  
As the debate proceeds, I hope we arrive at a clearer understanding of what precisely we should understand fairer trade to mean, as well as of the ways in which trade remains unfree. What does the evidence of trade's effects on inequality within and between countries say? And how should trade's effects on things like inequality or the wages of the less skilled in rich countries be balanced against the jobs it creates for poorer workers in developing countries, as well as its less remarked upon but widely dispersed benefits for consumers at large?  I wonder also whether fair and free ought to be seen as being in constant（始终如一的） conflict. Is part of the reason that trade seems unfair that it is not free enough (for example, because of continuing agricultural subsidies（津贴，补助金） in rich countries?) I look forward to a lively exchange between Ms Woods and Mr Bhagwati, and I hope that you, our readers, will take an active part in the discussion.