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Economic Growth in East Asia and Western Europe Since 195 0: Implications for Living Standards

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

N.F.R. Crafts
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Abstract

Evaluations of economic performance conventionally rely on levels and rates of growth of real GDP per person. This can be misleading especially when comparing East Asia with Western Europe. Here it is especially important to allow for differences in hours worked, and when this is done, Asian countries' productivity outcomes look much less impressive than is usually thought. More generally, it is argued that real GDP/person is not a good guide to well-being in high income countries where broader measures of economic welfare are required and index number problems preclude reliable league tables.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 162 , October 1997 , pp. 75 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

∗

I am delighted to acknowledge funding from the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and the excellent research assistance of Regina Grafe. I have benefited greatly from advice on data from Luciano Amaral, Bart van Ark, Isabelle Cassiers, Patrick Commins, Stephen Davies, Hans Kohler, Cormac O'Grada, Dirk Pilat, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, and James Simpson. I am very grateful to Andrew Oswald and Nicholas Oulton for helpful suggestions. Earlier versions of this paper were also improved by comments from participants in seminars at the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Keele and Warwick, the London School of Economics and the Economic History Society Conference, April 1997. I am responsible for all errors.

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