The Faulty Logic of GDP Necessitates an Economic Paradigm Shift

12/01/2016Per Bylund

Per Bylund writes for Observer.com:

Nearly 80 years ago — during the height of the Great Depression — economist Simon Kuznets envisioned a system capable of measuring productivity and economic activity. In a report to Congress, Kuznets proposed charting all economic production with a single measurement that would decrease when the economy struggled and increase when it thrived. He called it gross domestic product, or GDP.
Nations throughout the world embraced GDP as the standard for measuring economic activity; Kuznets eventually won the Nobel Prize for his creation. The popularity of GDP belies its effectiveness, however, as the measure systematically under-reports the significance of production.

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Contact Per Bylund

Per Bylund, PhD, is a Senior Fellow of the Mises Institute and Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Johnny D. Pope Chair in the School of Entrepreneurship in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, and an Associate Fellow of the Ratio Institute in Stockholm. He has previously held faculty positions at Baylor University and the University of Missouri. Dr. Bylund has published research in top journals in both entrepreneurship and management as well as in both the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Review of Austrian Economics. He is the author of three full-length books: How to Think about the Economy: A Primer, The Seen, the Unseen, and the Unrealized: How Regulations Affect our Everyday Lives, and The Problem of Production: A New Theory of the Firm. He has edited The Modern Guide to Austrian Economics and The Next Generation of Austrian Economics: Essays In Honor of Joseph T. Salerno. He has founded four business startups and writes a column for Entrepreneur magazine. For more information see PerBylund.com.

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