海角大神

This week鈥檚 Economist magazine calls our attention to a United Nations report (the 鈥淚nclusive Wealth Report鈥�) that compares the wealth of nations, looking beyond GDP:

The highlights of the report are summarized in the graphic above, from the Economist story.聽 Note that even on this 鈥渂eyond GDP鈥� measure of wealth, the U.S. is still an economic leader鈥揳nd China seems less of a challenger:

And given that human capital is by far our greatest asset鈥�

鈥�the question that policymakers concerned about economic growth need to focus on, is, not just do we have a lot of human capital now, but are we continuing to make the most of our greatest asset, to assure continued strong growth in the future?聽 For all the measured human capital we have ready and willing to work, the fact that the U.S. unemployment rate is still high means that a lot of our human capital is currently 鈥渋dle鈥� and not translating into GDP.聽 Additionally, if our society fails to adequately support higher education, we could easily begin to fall behind in the human capital department over time.

In terms of聽 fiscal policy and what qualifies as 鈥減ro-growth鈥� policy here in the U.S. (typically tax breaks for wealthy investors in physical capital), I think we need to better scrutinize our tax (cut) and spending programs to better direct our resources toward the investments most likely to pay off over time.聽 Economists鈥� preoccupation with current and aggregate GDP as a measure of economic well being may ironically be keeping us from being as truly 鈥渨ealthy鈥� as we could be.