Taught by Patricia Ruggles
The purpose of this course is to allow students to understand where our basic measures of economic achievement and well-being come from, and what different measures can and can’t tell us. Graduates of public policy schools are often asked to use basic economic statistics such as GDP, household income measures, poverty measures, and measures of both personal and national wealth for analysis purposes, but many have only a vague understanding of how these measures are derived and how the measurement methods used to compile the data affect their appropriate uses. Comparisons of well-being of both nations and people across time and geography are regularly made, but the data can be confusing and contradictory. This course aims to clarify the policy purposes of such measures and to explain why different measures are needed for different purposes. It will also give students practice in using these measures to explore policy issues through specific writing assignments.