Beyond Gdp, ambientalisti ed economisti a confronto
Thursday November 22nd, 2007 | 06:04 pm | Felicità e benessere, Uncategorized
The “Beyond Gdp” meeting in Brussels put together environmentalists and economists on the concept of sustainable development and the ways to measure it. The old Gross domestic product is not perfect, but instead of quarreling ideologically around it, it is much better to work together researching new measures of the human progress. But the task will not be easy: it requires acceptance by the politicians and capacity to use the new indicators for better policies.
Come nasce la statistica del 21° secolo
Saturday October 20th, 2007 | 06:09 pm | Future, Globalizzazione, Statistica
The bi-monthly magazine East, Europe and Asia STrategies published my article in Italian and English about the Istanbul Conference on “Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies” which took place in June. Shall we see The Gross National Happiness replace the Gross Domestic Product as main indicator of the well being of a country, as in Buthan? I don’t think so. But from this field of research we can expect to witness the birth of the new statistical system of the 21st century ond of new world goals which will replace the Millennium Development Goals (Mdg).
La ricchezza nell’era wikinomics
Sunday September 2nd, 2007 | 10:42 am | Uncategorized
Wikinomics, the new system to which everybody contributes freely through internet, puts under discussion some of our basic economic concepts. The gross domestic product (Gdp), for example, is based on the idea of measuring “wealth”. But what is wealth if an important part of the economy develops without payments and without prices?
Oecd: “Well being” is measured by Gdp?
Wednesday February 8th, 2006 | 07:20 pm | Uncategorized
The Report Going for Growth by Oecd, released on Tuesday 7th, includes a Chapter on “alternative measures of well being”. I am sorry that only a short summary of the report is freely available on line, with few references to this chapter, but I will try summarize Read more…
Three Italies: a revolution in family incomes
Thursday February 2nd, 2006 | 06:49 pm | Uncategorized
A new survey on the household budgets by the Bank of Italy gives food for thought on the evolution of the Italian economy. We were used to think that the Italian regions follow two different patterns: the North, with European standards of living, and the South, the Mezzogiorno, trying to catch up but always far behind.
The Italian central bank (Banca d’Italia), who has a very efficient research center, released the results of its biennial survey, with some surprising results. Read more…
Don’t throw your compass into the sea
Thursday January 12th, 2006 | 06:54 pm | Uncategorized
Is the Gdp (Gross domestic product) a correct way to measure the progress of a nation? The problem is well known to statisticians and economists, with controversies that you can read in wikipedia and in many papers. Even the United Nations through its agency Undp, has launched a few years ago a new indicator, the Human Development Index, which takes into consideration not only the economic wealth, but also education and life expectancy.
In recent times, the Gdp problem is becoming more and more political and not only statistical. For many reasons: Read more…
