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The application of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) to the state of Victoria, Australia for the period 1986-2003 is reviewed. The GPI includes individual cost and benefit items that are responsible for social, environmental, and economic impacts associated with a growing economy. The policy implications of this application are also discussed.

Econometric models can be used to determine the value of human capital with just a few modifications. A study of education in several countries and levels of technology show that total functional productivity is higher in those countries. Further studies on the impact of technological knowledge on the economy are needed.

This paper challenges the current belief that income inequality has a negative relationship with economic growth. It uses an improved data set on income inequality which not only reduces measurement error, but also allows estimation via a panel technique. Panel estimation makes it possible to control for time-invariant country-specific effects, therefore eliminating a potential source of omitted-variable bias. Results suggest that in the short and medium term, an increase in a country's level of income inequality has a significant positive relationship with subsequent economic growth. This relationship is highly robust across samples, variable definitions, and model specifications.

This paper develops methods for constructing asymptotically valid confidence intervals for the date of a single break in multivariate time series, including I(0), I(1), and deterministically trending regressors. Although the width of the asymptotic confidence interval does not decrease as the sample size increases, it is inversely related to the number of series which have a common break date, so there are substantial gains to multivariate inference about break dates. These methods are applied to two empirical examples: the mean growth rate of output in three European countries, and the mean growth rate of U.S. consumption, investment, and output.

The US Consumer Price Index (CPI) has a bias of 1.5 percent which overstates changes in the cost of living . The Senate Finance Committee investigated the matter in 1995 and estimated that the CPI has a projected bias of 1 percent per year for the future. A bias of this magnitude affects the assessment of the growth of the economy and the well being of its members. The results may be altered by changes in the demographic and economic conditions. The problems of price data measurement provides opportunities for further research.

Thirty-nine economic development factors were analyzed using a multivariate analysis technique to establish an accurate measure of development. The results of the analysis were tested on economic data gathered between 1970 and 1990 from Asian and Latin American countries. The results showed that conventional measures of development such as GDP and GNP per capita do not accurately show the development of a country. Other factors such as social climate, literacy, health care and political stability also contribute to enhance economic development.

Multidimensional development has been defined by indicators, particularly in the field of economics. However, studies indicate that the selection and importance attached to such indicators are often not supported by a theoretical framework. Rather, they are integrated from definitions derived from other authors in the same field. However, the trend shows that indicators are often based on developed countries and their performances as standards., In the 1970s and 1980s, a succession of new concepts of development were born. They came about as a result of criticism levelled against the theory of development which had [...]

Now that some time has elapsed since the adoption of industrial policies by the American states, it is appropriate to consider the question of policy impact. In this paper, an answer is sought using new data on gross state product and a new measure of state industrial policy activism. The paper discusses the economic origins of industrial policy and describes the development and testing of an impact model for two measures of economic distress for the 1982 to 1986 period. Conclusions are drawn concerning the complicated early impact of state industrial policy.

Economists who ignore the significance of household production may obtain an upwardly biased measure of economic growth. Household production shifts to market production as economic growth occurs. A model of household production shows that the household sector's relative size decreased between 1930 and 1985. Household output represented 28% of market output in 1985, compared to 73% in 1930. Compositional changes in the labor force and the decrease in time that women spent doing housework contributed to this decline.

The paper uses a structural time series model to reconsider growth in industrial output in 19th-century Europe. The approach is based on an unobserved components methodology in which there is no ex-ante specification of dates at which the trend is hypothesized to have changed and both trend and cycle are stochastic. We find that trend growth was variable over time in several cases but in general was less volatile than has been claimed and also that in general these times series of industrial output are difference rather than trend stationary.

Last year, as part of a comprehensive revision of the national income and product accounts (NIPA'S), the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) introduced chain-type annual-weighted indexes, also known as Fisher [...]

Information about the 'Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress,' which is a landmark document in its advocacy of the use of subjective measures of well-being for assessing social progress, is presented. It is believed that the magnitude of this recommendation may not be fully appreciated by non-economists.

A study was conducted to create a new Malmquist index approach and to decompose changing efficiency rates into a contribution from environmental factors. It is argued that productivity measures that ignore environmental effects may give misleading information on total productivity growth.