More than half a decade has passed since the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In retrospect, what is surprising is that these events and their consequences came as such a surprise. What was it that prevented most of the world from recognizing the impending crisis and, looking ahead, what needs to be done to prevent something similar?             Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy identifies measurement problems associated with the financial crisis and improvements in measurement that may prevent future crises, taking account of the dynamism of the financial marketplace in which measures that once worked well become misleading. In addition to advances in measuring financial activity, the contributors also investigate the effects of the crisis on households and nonfinancial businesses. They show that households’ experiences varied greatly and some even experienced gains in wealth, while nonfinancial businesses’ lack of access to credit in the recession may have been a more important factor than the effects of policies stimulating demand.

            Quantitative measures of international exchange have historically focused on trade in tangible products or capital. However, services have recently become a larger portion of developed economies and international trade, and will only increase in the future. In International Trade in Services and Intangibles in the Era of Globalization, Marshall Reinsdorf and Matthew J. Slaughter examine new and emerging patterns of trade, especially the growing importance of transactions involving services or intangible assets such as intellectual property.

            A distinguished team of contributors analyzes the challenges involved in measuring trade in intangibles, the comparative advantages enjoyed by United States service industries, and the heightened international competition for jobs, capital investment, economic growth, and tax revenue that results from trade in services. This comprehensive volume will be necessary reading for scholars seeking to understand the rapidly changing global economy.

Innovative new approaches for improving GDP measurement to better gauge economic productivity.Official measures of gross domestic product (GDP) indicate that productivity growth has declined in the United States over the last two decades. This has led to calls for policy changes from pro-business tax reform to stronger antitrust measures. But are our twentieth-century economic methods actually measuring our twenty-first-century productivity? The Measure of Economies offers a synthesis of the state of knowledge in productivity measurement at a time when many question the accuracy and scope of GDP. With chapters authored by leading economic experts on topics such as the digital economy, health care, and the environment, it highlights the inadequacies of current practices and discusses cutting-edge alternatives. Pragmatic and forward-facing, The Measure of Economies is an essential resource not only for social scientists, but also for policymakers and business leaders seeking to understand the complexities of economic growth in a time of rapidly evolving technology.

More than half a decade has passed since the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In retrospect, what is surprising is that these events and their consequences came as such a surprise. What was it that prevented most of the world from recognizing the impending crisis and, looking ahead, what needs to be done to prevent something similar?             Measuring Wealth and Financial Intermediation and Their Links to the Real Economy identifies measurement problems associated with the financial crisis and improvements in measurement that may prevent future crises, taking account of the dynamism of the financial marketplace in which measures that once worked well become misleading. In addition to advances in measuring financial activity, the contributors also investigate the effects of the crisis on households and nonfinancial businesses. They show that households’ experiences varied greatly and some even experienced gains in wealth, while nonfinancial businesses’ lack of access to credit in the recession may have been a more important factor than the effects of policies stimulating demand.

            Quantitative measures of international exchange have historically focused on trade in tangible products or capital. However, services have recently become a larger portion of developed economies and international trade, and will only increase in the future. In International Trade in Services and Intangibles in the Era of Globalization, Marshall Reinsdorf and Matthew J. Slaughter examine new and emerging patterns of trade, especially the growing importance of transactions involving services or intangible assets such as intellectual property.

            A distinguished team of contributors analyzes the challenges involved in measuring trade in intangibles, the comparative advantages enjoyed by United States service industries, and the heightened international competition for jobs, capital investment, economic growth, and tax revenue that results from trade in services. This comprehensive volume will be necessary reading for scholars seeking to understand the rapidly changing global economy.

Innovative new approaches for improving GDP measurement to better gauge economic productivity.Official measures of gross domestic product (GDP) indicate that productivity growth has declined in the United States over the last two decades. This has led to calls for policy changes from pro-business tax reform to stronger antitrust measures. But are our twentieth-century economic methods actually measuring our twenty-first-century productivity? The Measure of Economies offers a synthesis of the state of knowledge in productivity measurement at a time when many question the accuracy and scope of GDP. With chapters authored by leading economic experts on topics such as the digital economy, health care, and the environment, it highlights the inadequacies of current practices and discusses cutting-edge alternatives. Pragmatic and forward-facing, The Measure of Economies is an essential resource not only for social scientists, but also for policymakers and business leaders seeking to understand the complexities of economic growth in a time of rapidly evolving technology.