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The Measure of Economies

Measuring Productivity in an Age of Technological Change

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.


368 pages | 37 halftones, 19 line drawings, 23 tables | 6 x 9

Economics and Business: Economics--Econometrics and Statistics, Economics--General Theory and Principles

Table of Contents

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

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