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Scoop.it!
A savage reversal of aid is happening at the very moment people need our help most. MPs must join together to stop it 
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Scoop.it!
The Nordic nation's PM says modern governments need to value green energy and family welfare more.
Graham Watson's insight:
Another one for the 'Does GDP measure living standards' file - with Iceland's Prime Minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir, joining New Zealand in announcing that the country is going to move away from using GDP, the measure of economic growth, as its principal macoreconomic objective in favour of broader measures of social well-being.
It's becoming an increasingly well-trodden path - however, it's naive to suggest that anyone every thought that GDP was the be-all and end-all as far as governmental objectives were concerned.
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Scoop.it!
Maximising output and finding better ways to measure it should be policymakers’ priority
Graham Watson's insight:
A rebuttal of much of the material that makes a case for abandoning existing measures of national income in favour of broader measures of well-being and/or happiness.
Project Syndicate's Michael Boskin makes the case that maximising output and finding more appropriate ways of measuring it are still the best method of improving the standard of living. And there's much to be said for this - why devote a lot of resources to developing more sophisticated measures of well-being when, for the most part, rising levels of GDP are associated with higher levels of welfare, not least in terms of improving consumer choice.
Scoop.it!
The way we assess economic performance and social progress is fundamentally wrong, and the climate crisis has brought these concerns to the fore
Graham Watson's insight:
The day's big macroeconomic story, although it's almost an annual event, the GDP is no longer fit-for-purpose article.
Quite why the pay for a Nobel laureate to write it, I don't know. I can think of many 18 year old economists that I've taught that would be equally capable of penning this.
The arguments are well-versed.
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This article, written by former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, denounces the government's approach to tackling the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that it is regressive, and its costs concentrated most heavily on the poor, both at home and abroad.
Not only has relatively little state aid been directed at the most vulnerable, with the £20 rise in Universal Credit only being temporary, but cuts to the aid budget have lessened our support for those most vulnerable globally, exacerbating the return of extreme poverty.
It's a compelling view - and there's more than a grain of truth to it, not least in comparison to the large sums lavished on PPE, where a relatively narrow, and well-connected group, appear to have disproportionately benefited.