We Should Be Measuring Well-Being Catalysis, Not (trying and largely failing to measure) Economic Productivity

Overall, it's pretty clear that in the modern economy, measuring output in terms of "product units" is very often Voodoo. In some cases it can be done simply, like how many bathroom mirrors of a given side are produced. But in the cases of medical care, cars, TVs or phones, where the product itself is ever changing and evolving, there is no simple ... See more

A friend of mine recently felt dizzy and went to a US urgent care facility for blood tests. They were inconclusive and so he was sent to the nearby emergency room, which proceeded to do the same blood tests over again, because they were not able to access the urgent care facility's test results in their computer system. This was just plain wasted w... See more

It would be a lot more useful to measure how well the economy and its various sectors catalyze emergence of human well-being. This is not extremely easy to measure but it can be done in a way that's far less fudgy than current standard attempts to measure economic productivity.