Adding together the goods and services we produce in the GDP, statisticians wonder if they should include illegal economic activities.
Celebrating the Economic Independence That Alexander Hamilton Created
Relevant today, the timeless ideas in Alexander Hamilton’s development plan are about a sovereign debt, banking, and economic growth.
How Legal Marijuana Could Make the Canadian GDP Too High
With marijuana legalization, Canada has had to revise 60 years of its Gross National Product (GDP) to avoid misleading numbers.
What the GDP Leaves out (And Should It Matter?)
As a yardstick of the value of the goods and services produced in one year, a country’s GDP might be more accurate if it included unpaid household work.
What Grey Poupon Says About Your Affluence
You can assume that individuals are affluent if their consumer spending includes iPads, Verizon Wireless, and Ziploc bags.
The Value of Work Done at Home
Whether looking at childcare, boiling water, or changing a light bulb, the activities that compose household production are tough to value.
Will Money Make You Happy?
While it is tough to do happiness studies, the economists that keep trying have begun to conclude that money could indeed relate to our life satisfaction.
How to Really Grasp the GDP
We can better grasp what we mean by the GDP by looking at the numbers and also by comparing its components to an alternative.
Enlightening Measures of China’s Growth
Economists can use nighttime lights from NASA’s satellite images of the earth to decide if China’s economic growth statistics are accurate.
The Revenge of the Smartphone
When technology bites back, it forces us to recognize that all new things can have unintended consequences that offset the benefits of innovation.