September 24, 2009
AFP presented various comments on the economic issue of Thailand. It was proposed that one could fight for the wrong things if one chose the wrong measures. It is questioned if Thailand should go for the Gross National Happiness or Gross Domestic Product growth.
The Nation (www.nationmultimedia.com) says Thailand should forget GDP and initiate a social divisiveness index instead;
"When Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz was in Bangkok recently, he was emphatic that we had to look for some other indicators to replace GDP figures in measuring our social well-being. In Paris last week, he said, "What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong measures, we will strive for the wrong things. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that the world had been trapped in a "cult of figures", launched a major new report by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Stiglitz and a panel of experts about how to ensure that governments take full account of their citizens' happiness and well-being instead of measuring success by gross domestic product (GDP) alone.
The commission proposed changes to the way GDP is measured, suggesting separate accounting for people's well-being and for the sustainability of a country's economy and natural resources.
Stiglitz and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, co-author of the report, said a more comprehensive method for measuring performance would cut the per capita GDP gap between the US and France by at least half. As it stands now, US per capita GDP is 14 per cent higher than France's. The commission did not work out the effect of its proposals on different countries, but Stiglitz was quoted by The Financial Times as saying that the changes would bring about "major adjustment".
