… is from pages 327-328 of 2015 Nobel-laureate Angus Deaton’s 2013 book The Great Escape:
The slowdown in [economic] growth is likely overstated, because the statisticians miss a lot of quality improvements, especially for services, which represent an increasing share of national output. The information revolution and its associated devices do more for wellbeing than we can measure. That these pleasures are barely captured in the growth statistics tell us about the inadequacies of the statistics, not the inadequacies of the technology or the joys it brings.
DBx: Yes. And it seems to follow from this point that even the immediate damage done to the economy by the hysteria over Covid-19 and the lockdowns is understated.
Improvements in our living standards are understated by the failure of national-income statistics to accurately register the full, happy results of modern technology. And so to extent that Covid Derangement Syndrome and the associated lockdowns obstruct our access to existing technologies, as well as slow the advance of modern technologies, national-income statistics fail to adequately register the resulting economic damage.
