The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined by the GDP.
Simon KuznetsRead
Does inequality in the distribution of income increase or decrease in the course of a country's economic growth?
Interpretation
The quote questions whether economic growth leads to greater or lesser income inequality within a country.
Simon Kuznets' quote poses a critical inquiry regarding the relationship between economic growth and income inequality. It suggests that as a country develops economically, the distribution of wealth may either become more unequal or more equal over time. This idea challenges policymakers and economists to consider how growth impacts social structures and equity, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding of economic policies and their social implications.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about economic policy reforms at a conference.
The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined by the GDP.
It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. Why? Because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth. We know that investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase growth. They increase good jobs, and they create new wealth for all of us.
One of the evils of paper money is that it turns the whole country into stock jobbers. The precariousness of its value and the uncertainty of its fate continually operate, night and day, to produce this destructive effect. Having no real value in itself it depends for support upon accident, caprice, and party; and as it is the interest of some to depreciate and of others to raise its value, there is a continual invention going on that destroys the morals of the country.
The true law of economics is chance, and we learned people arbitrarily seize on a few moments and establish them as laws.
Investing in women is smart economics, and investing in girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics.
It is an extreme perversion of capitalism if you can trade in something before you have even paid for it.
For most Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.
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