Sincerely, Ju-chang He
SHENZHEN, P.R. CHINA Welcome to My Homepage <http://sites.netscape.net/juchang/>
Date: Saturday, September 04, 1999 12:28 AM Max Sawicky wrote:
>chang:
>>> Why do economists have no other standard of measure indicating the
>living
>standards of poor people?
>
>We do. Plenty of them. If you want references,
>one place to start is with an intermediate text
>on public finance.
>
>There is data on incomes by income class and many
>other characteristics reported by the Census. There
>is research on non-monetary types of income received
>by the poor. There are measures before taxes, after
>taxes, and after taxes-minus-transfers. There are
>various measures of income inequality.
>
>I'd be surprised to find an introductory text which
>does not make clear the distinction between GDP and
>well-being, or between GDP and the condition of the
>poor. The use of GDP in political debate as a welfare
>indicator is another matter, but this thread is getting
>ridiculous.
>
>mbs
>
>