Follow BeltwayBlips on Twitter
GDP and the Developing World
Matthew Yglesias —
... Gross Domestic Product is an extremely useful analytical tool. But like any tool, it needs to be used in appropriate situations. Assessing negative impacts that will be felt worldwide, but especially concentrated among the world’s poorest people, is not such a context. Nate Silver has an excellent map illustrating the point—what would the world look like with 5 percent of GDP wiped out? Well, it could look like a world in which the U.S., Europe, and the developed part of East Asia are slightly poorer. Or it could look like this world in which 81 countries containing 43 ...
Questioning Manzi
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
... Also, Nate Silver's recent argument
about the fallacy of using GDP to measure the effects of climate-change
is right on. As well know, the third world contributes only a very
small amount to the global GDP, and most of the third-world happens to
also live in areas likely to be hit hardest by climate change. As he
points out the 5% global effect of climate change on GDP is equal to
the GDP of 81 of the world's poorest countries, or roughly 43% of the
world population. ...
How Much Are Venice, The Everglades, And New Orleans Worth?, Ctd.
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
... , but the overall point about GDP and modeling is worth noting. Nate Silver did a better job digging into the GDP numbers and putting them in context. He checks out how many countries you could destroy before consuming 5 percent of world GDP. The bottom line: ...
Money is Not the Measure of All Things
The American Scene —
I think there is a compelling case that if we were to use the best estimates from the IPCC and similar technical bodies for the most likely impacts of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) on average global GDP over the next century, then proposed programs of emissions mitigation are not economically justified. Many very smart bloggers have made the point that that using average global GDP as our only metric to evaluate the relative attractiveness of potential future outcomes misses a ...
Money Is Not the Measure of All Things
The Corner on National Review Online —
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 [image] Money Is Not the Measure of All Things [ Jim Manzi ] I think there is a compelling case that if we were to use the best estimates from the IPCC and similar technical bodies for the most likely impacts of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) on average global GDP over the next century, then proposed programs of emissions mitigation are not economically justified. Many very smart bloggers have made the point that that using average global GDP as our only metric to evaluate the relative attractiveness ...
