觀點：早就應該從打造GDP轉向改善發展指標_風聞

來源：三泰虎

View: A policy shift away from GDP generation, and towards improving development indicators, is long overdue

觀點：早就應該從打造GDP轉向改善發展指標

England fought the Dutch three times, with local landowners facing high taxes on their estate’s income to fund the war. William Petty found this quite unjust and decided to compile a set of national accounts for England and Wales, asserting that national income must balance out with total spending.

He quantified expenses — about 4.5 pence per day was adjudged to be enough for food, housing, clothing and other necessities for each of England and Wales’ six million citizens, totalling up to £40 million annually. Income was tabulated across a long list of assets — houses in London, land, ship, etc — totalling up to £15 million annually. The remainder was classified as wages at about £25 million annually.

Petty’s advice, to the go nment of the day, was to shift the tax burden accordingly. And, thus, the gross domestic product (GDP) was born. Its modern formulation was crafted by Simon Kuznets for the US Congress report (bit.do/fj5Wf) in 1934, caveated by not being suitable for measuring social progress or welfare. And, yet, this is the metric that nations chase most after.

Such caveats were recognised from the beginning. The modern formulation may not include externalities, nonmarket transactions, non-monetary economy, quality improvements or wealth distribution. Current measures of economic growth (including GDP) may consider every expense as a positive — without distinguishing between welfare-enhancing and welfare-reducing activities. Even the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster could raise GDP through rebuilding.

There is also little recognition for the distribution of income among individuals and its significant social impact.

A number of alternative approaches have emerged. In the early 1980s, a capability approach emerged, focusing on the functional capabilities enjoyed by the people of a country, explored in Séverine Deneulin and Lila Shahani’s 2009 An Introduction to the Human Development and Capability Approach: Freedom and Agency. The index of sustainable economic welfare, defined by John B Cobb and Herman Daly in 1989, is also utilised to consider other factors such as consumption of non-renewable resources.

英格蘭與荷蘭人進行了三次戰爭，當地的土地所有者要為他們的地產收入繳納高額税款來資助戰爭。威廉·佩蒂認為這很不公平，於是決定編制一套英格蘭和威爾士的國民賬户，主張國民收入必須與總支出相平衡。

他對開支進行了量化——英格蘭和威爾士600萬公民每人每天的食物、住房、衣服和其他必需品支出約4.5便士，每年總計達4000萬英鎊。收入通過一長串資產—倫敦的房屋、土地、船舶等—彙總而成，每年總計達1500萬英鎊。剩下的每年工資約為2500萬英鎊。

佩蒂給當時的政府的建議是相應地轉移税收負擔。於是，國內生產總值（GDP）誕生了。它的現代表述是由西蒙·庫茲涅茨在1934年為美國國會報告精心設計的，由於不適合衡量社會進步或福利而受到了批評。然而，這是各國最為追求的指標。

這種警告從一開始就得到了承認。現代公式可能沒有考慮外部因素、非市場交易、非貨幣經濟、質量改善或財富分配。當前的經濟增長指標(包括GDP)可能認為每一項支出都是積極的，而不區分增進福利和減少福利的活動。即使是1984年的博帕爾天然氣災難也能通過重建提高GDP。

人們也很少認識到個人收入的分配及其重大的社會影響。

於是一些替代方法出現了。在20世紀80年代早期有人提出了一種能力方法，關注一個國家的人民所享有的功能性能力，在Severine Deneulin和Lila Shahani的《2009年人類發展和能力方法導論：自由和能動》中進行了探討。1989年由John B Cobb和Herman Daly定義的可持續經濟福利指數也被用來考慮其他因素，如不可再生資源的消耗。

Don’t GDP, Be Happy

The better known concept of gross national happiness (GNH) was formulated into a framework in 2005 by Med Jones (). The World Bank has defined ‘comprehensive wealth’, taking into account the income generated along with the associated costs, to provide a deeper insight into economic well-being and sustainability of the progress path.

Meanwhile, Canada tops up its GDP figures with a per-capita sum of key elements that include natural, social and human capital. China created a ‘green GDP’ in 2006, considering environmental factors for GDP calculations. Britain surveyed happiness in addition to GDP in 2010, and New Zealand adopted a‘well-being’ budget in May 2019.

For India, there are three key measures we could explore. First, to measure the destruction of natural and social capital. A qualitative adjustment of GDP assessments, with linkages built to recognise how much incremental social and natural capital such economic activities build, may be looked at.

One metric, the ‘genuine progress indicator’ (GPI), takes an existing GDP data set, and adds in corrections for various social and environmental factors such as inequality, pollution costs and underemployment.

Such corrections, at the very least, would enable us to showcase market failures hidden by the overlying GDP numbers, and then instigate go nment action — such as banning polluting industries — for mitigation. Results from these corrections are revealing.

Global GDP has increased three times since 1950. However, economic welfare, as defined by GPI, has actually decreased in net terms. Dividing this by population could give a true picture of economic outcome. Global GPI per capita peaked in 1978 — coincidentally, the same period when the global ecological footprint exceeded the global biocapacity to sustain life.

不要GDP，要快樂

眾所周知的國民幸福總值（GNH）概念是由Med Jones於2005年提出的。世界銀行已經定義了“綜合財富”，考慮到產生的收入和相關的成本，以便更深入地瞭解經濟福祉和進步道路的可持續性。

與此同時，加拿大的GDP數據以人均包括自然資本、社會資本和人力資本在內的關鍵要素的總和居於首位。中國在2006年創造了一個“綠色GDP”，考慮到計算GDP的環境因素。英國在2010年調查了除GDP之外的幸福感，新西蘭在2019年5月通過了“幸福”預算。

對印度來説，我們可以探討三項關鍵措施。第一，衡量自然資本和社會資本的破壞程度。可以考慮對GDP評估進行定性調整，建立聯繫，以確認此類經濟活動所建立的社會和自然資本增量。

一個度量，即“真正的進步指標”（GPI），採用了現有的GDP數據集，並增加了各種社會和環境因素的修正，例如不平等、污染成本和就業不足。

這樣的修正，至少可以讓我們展示出被過多的GDP數字所掩蓋的市場失靈，然後促使政府採取行動——比如禁止污染工業——來緩解這種狀況。這些修正的結果是有啓發性的。

自1950年以來，全球GDP增長了三倍。然而，根據政府採購指數的定義，經濟福利實際上在淨值方面有所下降。用人口來劃分這一數字可以真實地反映出經濟結果。全球人均GPI在1978年達到頂峯——巧合的是，同一時期，全球生態足跡超過了維持生命的全球生物承載力。

Giving greater priority to development indicators can be explored. The human development index (HDI), developed by Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, emerged as a composite index of life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rate and standard of living, and is now complemented by numerous composite indices: inequality-adjusted HDI, gender inequality index, gender development index, etc. A shift in economic policies, away from GDP generation, and towards improving development indicators, is long overdue.

Finally, we must continue to measure GDP. It remains an ingenious tool to measure economic growth. But a change in approach is necessary.

In the words of economist Simon Kuznets, ‘Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.’ Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ would suddenly be more visible, and be skewed towards a direction of focusing on well-being.

我們可以探討更優先重視發展指標。人類發展指數（HDI）是由Mahbub ul Haq於1990年制定的，它是一個出生預期壽命、成人識字率和生活水平的綜合指數，如今還補充了許多組合指數：經調整的不平均人類發展指數、性別不平等指數、性別發展指數等。經濟政策的轉變，遠離了國內生產總值的產生和發展指標的改善早就應該開始了。

最後，我們必須繼續衡量GDP。它仍然是衡量經濟增長的巧妙工具。但方法上的改變是必要的。

用經濟學家西蒙•庫茲涅茨的話來説，必須牢記增長的數量和質量、成本和回報、短期和長期之間的區別。更多增長的目標應該明確更多增長的內容和目的。亞當•斯密的“看不見的手”將突然變得更明顯，並向追求幸福感的方向傾斜。

 以下是《印度經濟時報》網站讀者評論：

譯文來源：三泰虎    http://www.santaihu.com/48957.html       譯者：Joyceliu

Raj Tillan

makes a good CV for finance minister post or at least RBI governor

為財政部長或至少印度儲備銀行行長提供良好的簡歷。

Yashodhan Muzumdar

yes now BJP should introduce new methods of measurement of GDP.Whatever index you give whether HDI or happiness index still reality will be same that job losses, reduction in sales or production, fall in exports over 6 years, no major investments in 6 years, degrowth in savings, fall in farm income etc.

是的，現在人民黨應該引入新的GDP測量方法。無論你給出的是HDI還是幸福指數，現實情況都是一樣的：失業、銷售或生產減少、出口下降超過6年、6年內沒有重大投資、儲蓄減少、農業收入下降等等。

Mr.CoolGuy Sengupta

“The writer is a BJP MP” LOL look who we have elected �

“作者是人民黨議員”哈哈看我們都推選了誰。

Mr.CoolGuy Sengupta

Idiotic article.

愚蠢的文章。

H K Doshi

GDP is very important parameter to gauge overall economic growth. However low GDP is not bad but it signify low inflation. But we do not have only problem of low GDP but reduction in overall demand and consumption, which could be due to local and global uncertainty.

GDP是衡量整體經濟增長的重要指標。然而，低GDP並非壞事，但它意味着低通脹。但我們不僅面臨國內生產總值低的問題，而且還有整體需求和消費下降的問題，這可能是由於本地和全球的不確定性。

Realdeshbhakt

When modi and shah are implementing totalitarian policies in India,who the hell needs economy?Our bank accoutns are now controlled by govt,our data is with govt.This is too much concentration of power in hands of bureaucrats.The illiterate voters are enthusiastic about all this because they think only rich indians will be punished by non corrupt modi-shah(while they are most corrupt politicians in india in last 70 yrs).Pretty soon we will have social credit score and anyone who criticizes govt will be pauper within seconds

當莫迪和沙阿在印度實施集全主義政策時，誰需要經濟？我們的銀行賬户現在由政府控制，我們的數據是由政府提供的。官僚手中的權力太多集中。文盲選民對這一切充滿熱情，因為他們認為只有富有的印度人才會受到不附敗的莫迪沙阿的懲罰（但他們是印度70年來最附敗的政治家）。很快我們就會有社會信用評分，任何批評政府的人都會在幾秒鐘內成為窮光蛋。

Jaspinder Singh

This article is written by BJP MP as mentioned in the disclaimer. They want us to believe that GDP is not important anymore.

如免責聲明所述，本文是人民黨議員撰寫的。他們希望我們相信GDP不再重要。

Prakash Ramiah

Also after 70 years,wealth of one percent population holds 52 percent of wealth,of which top 10 individuals hold 77 percent or 35 percent wealth.

在70年後，百分之一人口的財富佔有52%的財富，其中前十名個人佔有77%或35%的財富。

RMB

welfare enhancing vs welfare reducing - these two terms need to be discriminated while defining developmental index.

福利增加與福利減少—在定義發展指數時，這兩個術語需要區別對待。