The Growth Delusion: The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations

by David Pilling

A provocative critique of the pieties and fallacies of our obsession with economic growth

We live in a society in which a priesthood of economists, wielding impenetrable mathematical formulas, sets the framework for public debate. Ultimately, it is economists who set the agenda for how much we can spend on our schools, highways, and defense; who decide how much unemployment is acceptable and whether it is right to print money or bail out profligate banks.

The backlash we are currently witnessing suggests that people are turning against the economists and their faulty representation of our lives. Despite decades of steady economic growth, many citizens feel more pessimistic than ever, and are voting for candidates who voice undisguised contempt for the technocratic elite. For too long, economics has relied on a language which fails to resonate with people's lived experience, and we are now living with the consequences.

In this powerful, incisive book, David Pilling dives into the biases and failings of our obsession with economic growth, and explores the alternatives to GDP, from measures of wealth, equality, and sustainability to measures of subjective wellbeing. Authoritative, provocative, and eye-opening, The Growth Delusion offers witty and unexpected insights into how our society can respond to the needs of real people instead of pursuing growth at any cost.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Audiobook, Business, History, Sociology

Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

David Pilling has reported from at least 50 countries over two decades as a foreign correspondent working for the Financial Times. That probably makes him 50 times more confused than the average person, but it has also made him inquisitive and unafraid of asking dumb questions. Pilling became accustomed to writing about "the economy", "growth" and "GDP" early in his reporting career. But only as he moved around the world from supposedly stagnant Japan to booming China and Brexit Britain did he begin to realise just how deluded the public debate can be about what an economy is and what it is for. He wanted to use an entertaining style, interviews and anecdotes from around the world to write a short book that would shed light on matters we often leave to economists - but really shouldn't. The result is "The Growth Delusion".

David Pilling has worked for the Financial Times since 1990 in various writing and editing roles. He was in Latin America (1993-96); London (1997-2001); and Tokyo (2002-2008). He was Asia Editor of the FT based in Hong Kong (2008-15) and is now Africa Editor and an Associate Editor of the FT. He has won several awards in the UK and Asia for opinion pieces and feature writing. His first book, "Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival" (Penguin Press, 2014) received outstanding reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific. He is based in London but travels frequently to Africa.

Reviews

[Radiantflux · Rating 4 out of 5]

78th book for 2019.

In this book, David Pilling, decade-long journalist for the Financial Times, does a excellent job of deconstructing what GDP does and does not measure, explaining why in many instances it's a poor policy-making instrument, and touches on briefly a series of other possible alternative measures (that all seem somewhat limited as well).

What he doesn't do—and what I perhaps unreasonably hoped for—is any sort of analysis as to why growth per se is unsustainable in a medium/long-term fashion; and the sorts of new alternative economic systems this limitation will engender.

The book's focus is simply on how poorly "growth" captures information useful for policy decisions.

4-stars.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an insightful book into GDP, gross domestic product. What gets measured matters. What isn't measured - such as environmental damage, pollution, housework, etc - has a tendency to be neglected. What gets measured is at best an educated guess, it isn't a fine instrument.

"The invention of GDP has given rise to a class of technocrats and economists who implement policy for the good of the economy, but not alway for the good of the rest of us. They have inherited a Newtonian view of what an economy is, as though it were a rational and predictable system, 'a singular entity with well-defined mechanical relationships between different moving parts connected by metaphorical pipes, cogs and levers'. Too often it is though of as something outside human experience. As one unorthodox thinker wrote, 'Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis'".

"The economy is not real. It is merely one way of imagining our world. Gross domestic product is not real either. It is just a clever way of measuring some of the stuff we humans get up to. Growth was a great invention. Now get over it."

[Keith Akers · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the title, I thought that this book would address the problems of economic growth. Instead, it addresses the problems with measuring economic growth. The author, a journalist, is debunking ideas about growth, but “limits to growth” is not discussed. This imprecision gave me a bad initial impression of the book, but the author actually does a pretty good job at explaining many of the problems with measuring growth.

What did I pick up from the book? Several things. Simon Kuznets (who devised GDP to measure growth) actually understood the shortcomings of GDP fairly well. We should really be measuring wealth, not just income. Many sources of wealth fall outside of the economy and thus are not measured in economic terms at all.

In poorer countries, we sometimes hear that people have an income of $1 or $2 a day, and this sounds absolutely horrible. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re starving to death, though. They may just be acquiring food and shelter outside of the economic system, and so it’s not measured. If we truly measured the value of all of these goods they are getting outside of the economy, the perceived inequality would be less than it seems today, because it is the poorest who have the most input of goods outside of the economic system.

Sometimes, well-being improves out of proportion to income. Just a small rise in income leads to huge increases in health.

Ideas broached by ecological economics do make an appearance. Pilling briefly and favorably mentions Herman Daly. But he also discusses a Chinese economist, Niu Wenyuan, whom I’d never heard of and who is sort of the Chinese equivalent of Herman Daly. He proposes a “green” index of something like Daly’s “Genuine Progress Indicators” (GPI). Daly’s idea, by the way, was devised at least partially because the indicators used for GPI were actually measurable and there was data on them. All they had to do was plug in the numbers and there you have it: the GPI. Wenyuan’s index looks at social factors like social quality (inequality is bad), ecological quality (waste and pollution are bad), etc.

Pilling also discusses other attempts at measuring the economy. Measuring happiness is another way of evaluating the economy, but there are problems with that. How do you measure happiness? Can’t people be deluded about whether they’re happy, what happened to “Socrates dissatisfied vs. a pig satisfied”? Is mental health better than ending poverty? So Bhutan’s experiment in evaluating the economy in terms of “gross national happiness” is hard to evaluate. If you’re living in grinding poverty but don’t know any better, you may be “happy” even though your children die young and you’re illiterate.

So, this book gave me some new insights into the problems associated with measuring growth. Even though it never really discussed “limits to growth” or anything like it, it does raise a lot of issues associated with ecological economics.

[Tom LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

A former correspondent for The Economist, Pilling spent many years writing about trends in countries’ GDP growth as a journalist, in his words “to add more gravitas to my articles”. In short, he wrote this book after he finally - and fully - understood what GDP actually means and how it is measured.

His research left him surprised that he and others—journalists, commentators, and politicians—have been extolling GDP growth so acritically for so long.

The way we are measuring growth today is deeply problematic. GDP has become the be-all and end-all (did you know that this expression comes from Shakespeare? I recently found out) to the detriment of the well-being of humans. Even negative occurrences are included in the cauldron of “growth” through GDP. Prostitution, drug trade, all that. Natural disaster struck? Now a lot of repairs have to be done, good for economic growth (applies more to developed economies). Crime rate high so neighbourhoods hire private security personnel? Good for the economy.

Pilling’s main message is that GDP needs to be revamped. He doesn’t call for the replacement of GDP, but more of a reduction of its spotlight.

It is not that growth itself is a delusion: after all, it has been associated with increases in living standards and reductions in poverty in many countries over the past half century. But growth often becomes a fetish for politicians and policymakers, who have given it priority over many other aspects of national well-being.

All in all, this is a great book that helps us dive deeper into the fabric of GDP as it is one of our modern “idols”. No one (especially politicians!) seems to have the guts to criticize it much, but… Where does it come from? Who came up with it? How accurate is it? (hint: not accurate at all).

And the broader point of the book is: we all should focus more on quality rather than quantity, when it comes to measuring an economy.

I don’t remember what theologian said that today we are “like accountants on a beach, counting the grains of sand instead of admiring the beauty of the sea”.


From a review in The Guardian:

“ GDP maps our past, present and future. No wonder this statistic has been dubbed one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. And yet, what is it exactly? It sounds simple. GDP is the sum of the value of all goods and services produced within a country’s territory without allowing for wear and tear. But this does not count something that is “out there”. What is out there are car factories, the warehouses of online retailers, and fees charged per hour by lawyers and doctors. This means that GDP is something quite abstract, as is “the economy” for which GDP stands. And both are of relatively recent vintage. Until the early 20th century the word “economy” was used to denote frugality, not the economic system which it evokes today. These abstractions have to be made up. They have to be put together by registering millions of acts of highly varied activity and production and incorporating them all into a single sum.

The insight that the economy is “made up” is no longer new. Depending on your intellectual tastes you could credit the idea to Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Polanyi or Michel Foucault. As we come to terms with an environmental crisis, there has been a rash of books about the growth fetish and how to overcome it. David Pilling’s book isn’t the first or the deepest, but it certainly has a claim to being the most engaging and fast paced. In a wonderfully cosmopolitan survey he shows us the work that goes into making up the world economy. He introduces us to Chinese accountants struggling to scrub their numbers of lethal pollution, Nigerian economists trying to count the informal economy, shamefaced British statisticians valuing sex work.

GDP at its neatest captures a narrow and somewhat arbitrary slice of reality – goods and services that are (legally) sold. Extending it to cover a richer view of reality requires hair-raising statistical acrobatics. In the process we may flatten reality. But the risk of not doing so is that activities not included in GDP will be neglected. It’s a ticklish balance.”


And here is a brief critique from Medium dot com:

“The solutions proposed in the final section of The Growth Delusion falls short in terms of matching the radicalness of the book’s title. Rather than strongly supporting any of the mentioned indexes such as gross progress index (GPI), human development index (HDI) or gross national happiness (GNH), Pilling suggests elevating other existing indicators such as GDP per capita, the Gini coefficient and the level of CO2 emissions.

To be fair, he does include the GPI in the list of recommendations but his testimony for it was markedly weak. My issue with this is that Pilling dedicated a large portion of the book on how our policy discussion have been dominated by a single metric. He should understand that this phenomenon of latching on to a single metric is only natural, and that spotlight will be filled. The strongest recommendation was GDP per capita, which to my understanding will still not ensure equitable improvement to everyone’s well-being. If there is no single metric to replace it, then the chances of the GDP still dominating policy discussion will remain high.”

[Shabbeer Hassan · Rating 4 out of 5]

GDP, GNP, HDI, and other humdrum abbreviations dominate the newspaper headlines quite often these days. A measure of any country's progress is often encapsulated within a single number called GDP aka GRoss Domestic Product and has been so for quite many decades now. What we often don't realize that it's not a product harking back from antiquity but rather a recent phenomenon developed to tackle the US 1930's recession and looming world wars. The rationale behind it was quite noble, if one can't measure a country's inflows and outflows, how can one say were to generate money from, which laws to pass to ease "growth", and how a country is faring on a year to year basis. So, if alles gut with GDP, then why this book?

The problem arises when these single number metrics subsumes any talk of a country's development. A case in point would be India! India has been having a record GDP growth since the past few years of 8% or more, its per capita income has grown leaps and bounds, FDI is up but why then it lags in infant mortality rates, or longevity or female education, malnutrition in children under 5, freedom of press, widening inequality amongst its ultra-rich and the burgeoning middle class? Or what to make of the fact, that despite skyscrapers being erected in major cities, major behemoths establishing in India, and growing tech sector, India still remains a farming dependent country with over 50% of the population directly or indirectly involved in it. And much of it is not traded in Dalal Street (India's equivalent of Wall Street), but rather in smaller markets, side stalls on pavements, etc. So, how do we connect these two disparate dots?

The answer to all this is that GDP is an ineffectual measure to chart a country's growth. It can tell you about economic growth based on certain commodities sampled across a country, but nothing about crucial inputs like public education, homemaking, natural wealth like rivers or arable land, despite the value these provide to society as a whole.

Ultimately GDP measures income and not wealth! And much of the wealth in any developing or under-developed nations lie in their secondary or tertiary sources of wealth all of which fall outside the tradable economy and so are never measured in economic jargons.

David then introduces several alternative metrics like Genuine Progress Indicators (GPI) or a Chinese economist, Niu Wenyuan's equivalent of GPI in China's context. The idea here is that until we don't input other metrics of a society's growth like gender equality, ecological harm, education rates, malnutrition rates, etc, nobody can actually tell whether the country is growing in actual, societal and indeed personal levels.

It's indeed a book of our times when simple numbers decide a country's fate from Moody's index of credit rating to World Bank/IMF loans to inflation rates. It's time when we look for a more holistic index or metric to chart a country's growth in more meaningful terms than just income flows. We need to chart a country's wealth be it natural mineral, derived like industries or human capital from the industrious homemaker to the free childcare which grandparents provide to any nuclear family. GDP was a product of its times, we desperately need a new one, for our own!

My Rating - 4.5/5

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read The Growth Delusion during a few quiet weeks back home in Dyfed, between one of my hosing contracts ending and the next beginning. With more time than usual, I wanted to read something that would keep my mind sharp, and even as someone who studies growth and development, this book taught me a huge amount.

David Pilling’s central argument is simple but devastating: GDP is not, and has never been, an adequate measure of a nation’s prosperity. From its origins as a wartime accounting tool to its modern political weaponisation, GDP tells us far less about human well-being than governments and markets would like us to believe. Pilling moves through history and across continents to make the case, showing how an obsession with growth distorts policy priorities, masks inequality, and ignores environmental limits.

The book is global in scope. We travel from post-war Japan’s boom years to modern China’s statistical theatre, from the oil economies of Africa to alternative measurement systems like Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness index and the OECD’s Better Life Index. Pilling explains how countries manipulate numbers for political ends, why some forms of economic activity are perversely counted as positive (even disasters that generate “rebuilding” spending), and how entire swathes of life, like care work, community, environmental health, are left invisible in the growth calculus.

What impressed me most was the clarity of the writing. Pilling manages to condense decades of economic theory, political history, and statistical analysis into plain, concise language that anyone can follow. He doesn’t shy away from the technicalities like the flaws in purchasing power parity, or the difference between nominal and real GDP, but he roots them in concrete, human examples. It’s the kind of work that’s accessible to a complete beginner yet still provocative for someone immersed in development studies.

This isn’t just a critique; it’s also an invitation to think differently. Pilling points towards alternative indicators and reframes the question of “progress” around health, equity, sustainability, and dignity rather than perpetual consumption. For anyone interested in economics, development, policy, or simply in understanding the numbers that shape our world, this is essential reading, and a reminder that how we measure something often determines what we value.

[Karel Baloun · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is notable that an associate editor of the Financial Times, with decades of business reporting experience, has decided to come out against GDP as a meaningful measure. Yet he still stakes out a very safe conservative position, with completely uncontroversial statements, such as Japan is doing fine even without GDP growth. (p13) Skip any parts that seem like “review” to you, even if they are funny. Pilling takes a long time to move beyond the basics, and his humor doesn’t much make the pages roll by faster.

“In pursuit of growth, we are told, we may have to work longer hours,/public services, except where any quality, give up our privacy, and let “wealth Dash creating” bankers have free reign […] The pursuit of growth without” even threaten the very existence of humanity, ransacking by in pursuit of growth, we are told, we may have to work longer hours,/public services, except where any quality, give up our privacy, and let “wealth-creating“ bankers have free reign […] The pursuit of growth without end could even threaten the very existence of humanity, ransacking our biodiversity and driving us to unsustainable levels of consumption and CO2 emissions that wreck the very planet on which are wealth depends. Only in economics is endless expansion seen as a virtue. In biology is called cancer.” (p11)

Chapters 8 and nine on India and China respectively, are well written and informative. Yep just when I was sulking that the book is teaching me nothing new, chapter 10 starts with the assertion that nothing measures national balance sheets, which I had somehow overlooked over my life. GDP is all about income and nothing about wealth or assets, which is where Saudi Arabia for example is screwed. Yet even as the need is effectively argued, HOW to measure wealth is not at all deep, leaning heavily on Robert Costanza. Inexplicably, Pilling finds the world bank wealth accounting somehow compelling/credible, even though it says that natural capital is only 2% of the wealth of rich countries. (p188)

The Layard / Happiness chapter is lengthy and full on questionable data (really being married and religious is the only path to joy? Better than being healthy even? p207). Bhutan’s “gross national happiness” index components seem more intuitive: Psychological well-being, health, time use, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, living standards. ( p216) Yet, as noted, Bhutan isn’t living up to its index, as the King has produced only 55% female literacy.

The best alternative to GDP is the human development Index, and this HDI only gets five pages in the last chapter. (p232) and the oecd’s Better life index, is only mentioned finally in the conclusion on page 253.

[David Buccola · Rating 2 out of 5]

David Pilling's book "The Growth Delusion" is yet another lame attempt at propping up the pseudoscience of economics. There are so many things I disliked about this book I don't even know where to begin. I was often reminded of the old Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." David Pilling is a man who's salary is dependent on pretending that economics is a science. It's a "science" that according to Pilling has made some mistakes in the past but new economists are busy fixing everything and we can all rest assured. Pilling reminded me of a modern day Martin Luther who's seen some flaws among our modern priesthood of economists but thinks we can get them back on track. Missing from his analysis is any realization that economics is not actually science at all. For this review I'm simply going to go through my kindle notes and select some of the glaring quotes I highlighted and make some comments.

"But there is another, more philosophical, problem with the future. Why should we care about it? After all, in the end not only are we going to die, but our universe is going to die too. It will turn into a zero-energy soup. Can we really expect them to act now to avoid something in another time dimension for the benefit of the as-yet-unborn, even if they are ever-so-distantly related to us? Philosophically, let alone economically, it is a practically unanswerable question."

There is nothing unanswerable about this question. It represents the myopic shallowness that Pilling exhibits throughout the book. In fact we know that many societies on this planet have had no problem respecting future generations of not just human life but the entire tree of life. A recent study published by Wyatt Oswald, Emerson College found that Native Americans had no discernible impact on the environment of North America going back 14,000 years. In fact, it's well known that various indigenous peoples of North America routinely made decisions thinking seven generations into the future. Also note that there is no conclusive proof that our universe is going to die. We have theories that may or may not be true at this point, and given the immense time scales involved the possible crunch of our universe billions of years from now is hardly any reason to disregard our future.

"The genius of GDP is that it somehow manages to squeeze all human activity into a single number." This ridiculous quote had me channeling the great Stephen Jay Gould in his classic "The Mismeasure of Man" in which he destroys the absurd notion that a single number can represent human intelligence. What could be further from genius than assuming that a single number could have any meaningful explanatory power for all human activity? If Pilling had given this any serious scrutiny he might have noticed that GDP is really a simple measurement of our destruction of nature. To be fair he has plenty of criticism of GDP, but it's the type of criticism that one would expect from a true believer like Pilling. For instance, Pilling writes, "Rather than replace GDP, we should add to it, so that we can flesh out a more nuanced view of our world."

"On the one hand, GDP may actually be underestimating how well off we are." Pilling repeats this a few times throughout the book. Somehow our destruction of the biosphere and pending ecological collapse are not that big of a deal. Here he reminds of someone like Steven Pinker and others who despite reality continue to argue that things have never been better. Never mind that we are living through the planet's sixth extinction event caused by human activity. Never mind the dying oceans and increasingly toxic air and water. Things are great and GDP isn't even telling us how great things are!

I'll end with this one. It's a quote from economist Brent Moulton: "Figuring out wealth is particularly important in countries that are dependent on natural resources." Let that sink in for a moment. If there is any doubt that economics is a pseudo-science this should clear that up. Moulton, a member of the priesthood, is implying that there are countries that ARE NOT dependent on natural resources. Apparently these people must eat ideas and live on dreams. Going back to my belief that people like Pilling are as delusional as someone like Martin Luther we essentially have the nonsensical Christian idea--here espoused by a modern priest of economcis--that we can live in this world but not of it.

As a professional carpenter I can certainly appreciate the importance of good measurements. However the priesthood of economics has made it abundantly clear that they are incapable of measuring. Take our last global recession where sixty trillion dollars evaporated in the blink of an eye. This priesthood mismeasured by a number that is practically beyond the human mind to even imagine. People like Pilling want to convince us that with a little tweaking we can get better data from these people. He actually argues at one point that we need to invest in these statisticians the way we invest in the physical sciences. This is an awful book.

[Baiba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grāmata par iekšzemes kopproduktu - tā izcelsmi, attīstības vēsturi, trūkumiem, priekšrocībām, kā arī pastāvošajām alternatīvām. Galvenā atziņa ir tāda, ka IKP sniedz informāciju par ekonomisko izaugsmi, bet maz atspoguļo patieso sabiedrības labklājību. Un kopumā viss teksts, manuprāt, bija neliela autora atzīšanās mīlestībā statistikai.
Autors ir žurnālists, un tas vienlaikus ir gan šīs grāmatas lielākais pluss, gan arī trūkums. Kā žurnālists viņš ir spējis ekonomiku un ar IKP saistīto statistikas apstrādi izskaidrot saprotami un patiešām interesanti. Vienlaikus vietām grāmata šķita pārāk vienkāršota un liela daļa atziņu - pašsaprotamas. Tāpat no vienas puses bija aizraujoši lasīt par statistikas apkopšanas un interpretācijas pieredzi citās valstīs (laimes indekss Butānā, koku skaitīšana Norvēģijā, zaļais IKP Ķīnā utt.), tomēr reizēm nepameta sajūta, ka autors atkārtojas. Bet kopumā man patika jeb kā rakstīja autors: "Statistics are not neutral. Nor are they boring. They are hugely political."

[Alex Zviovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for my book club but have been wanting to ref it for a while (discussion pending). I really enjoyed the book and found it to be a very insightful critique of GDP and the economically, reductionist world view. Worth a read, especially if you are a person skeptical of broad concepts blindly accepted by many.

[D.A. Holdsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

My copy of this book is a small forest of post-it notes and frenzied scribbles. A sure sign I’ve engaged with the book and – probably – loved it. In the case of ‘The Growth Delusion’, both are true.

Pilling takes the reader on a tour of GDP and our obsession with economic growth: the technical flaws of the index itself (GDP) and the wider societal problems of trying to hitch our economic waggon to eternal growth. In the middle section, he looks at the developing world – and in the final section he examines the alternatives to GDP that are on offer – for example China’s ‘GDP Quality Index’, Canada’s Index of Wellbeing, or Maryland’s Genuine Progress Index (which is probably the pick of the bunch).

The writing throughout is engaging and forceful, it’s quite brilliant. But it’s also balanced. Pilling is quick to highlight the very close correlation between GDP growth in the developing world and improved child survival rates (ie GDP growth still has its value there). GDP may be a busted flush over here, but probably not over there. He also takes care to examine the potential flaws in the many alternatives to GDP that are on offer.

My own novel, 'How to Buy a Planet', satirises the damaging cult of eternal GDP growth. Pilling’s book puts a lot of flesh on the bones of those basic arguments. It’s possibly my favourite popular finance / economics read this year. It’s right up there with Michael Lewis’ books, but with more passion and less preening. I cannot recommend it more highly.

[Tarz · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG. I am gobsmacked. Such an eye-opening book, written in such an objective, witty way. Genuinely laughed out loud at a book aimed at progressing economics past the veil of GDP.

Amazing, and so accessible to those outside the field of economics. Such a wide array of perspectives, ideas, indexes. LOVED IT.

[Bel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't quite remember why I got this - maybe a 3 for 2 Audible sale - but it didn't turn out to be what I expected. I thought it was going to be a critique of economic growth as a desideratum, given the unsustainable environmental impact. I'm glad it wasn't, since that would just have been preaching to the choir.

Rather, Pilling gives a history of the invention of GDP and discusses in detail its shortcomings. He does a really good job of illustrating that any index we might use will be inherently subjective and the result of value judgments on what to include. I had never thought before about the fact that not only does environmental pollution and destruction contribute to GDP, but so does the work involved in cleaning it up. Not only does the sale of cigarettes contribute to GDP, but also the cost of trying to treat the diseases they cause. Why do we use a measure that considers spending on crime prevention (police, jails, burglar alarms) a net positive, that doesn't take account of increased efficiency, and that doesn't take account of the distribution of the wealth being generated.

Why do governments thoroughly aware of its weaknesses - like the UK government that has commissioned research into alternatives - not push away from this? I feel like - as an economic layperson - the only alternatives to GDP I have seen presented in the media are too extreme for most people to accept. But this book showed me that it doesn't have to be a "happiness index" or anything hippy sounding (though I'd be all in favour of that). It could just be a similar measure that excludes or, better still, detracts activities that society agrees are harmful: there are plenty of those that would not be hugely controversial. Or it could be GDP in combination with any of the other indices Pilling mentions, such as the Gini coefficient. Is the lack of change on this front in nearly 100 years really the result of lobbying from the industries that would be disadvantaged? Is it concern about the reactions of voters? Is it sleepwalking? This book made me want to read more.

[James (JD) Dittes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book for readers like me with a casual interest in economics (1-2 books a year). Pilling's focus is simple, if not over-simplified: GDP is an inaccurate measure of a country's well-being.

He spends about 2/3rds of the book taking on GDP: going over the history of the statistic and showing how countries manipulated the system to record huge jumps, as well as the way GDP increases masked social or environmental calamities. Pilling's chapter, "The Good, the Bad, and the Invisible," does a great job illustrating GDP-useless inputs like public education, or homemaking, despite the value these provide to families and society.

Admittedly, this went on a little long, and I was eager to find Pilling's recommendations. He goes on to endorse more sophisticated measures of wealth like "green GDP" and Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI).

I think that Pilling's call for better measures is worthwhile, although it would take quite a political sea change to change GDP's hold on the status quo. As I see it, the wealth cited by the newer indexes doesn't actually profit the elites who run countries like the United States and exploit the human and natural resources therein.

The book really made me wish I had finished Thomas Pinkety's Capital in the 21st Century, which this 'casual reader' had started and stopped several times a few years ago. I think it may have lain the groundwork for Pilling's book.

[Ionarr · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like a 3.5 but I rounded up because, well, it's an economics book. And I read it. And enjoyed it.

A lot less dry and a lot more entertaining than I expected, so pretty much a joy to read. It's basic enough that at times I wished it was more advanced, but at other times I wanted more detail and a more extensive breakdown of concepts to make sure I was understanding them correctly, so it balanced out nicely. Pilling is not here to teach you economics 101, but he will clearly lay out why growth and gdp is vastly overrated and how that can be damaging to us as humans - even while sticking to a tried and true liberal economist viewpoint, which at times annoyed me (being further left the him and with an academic basis in not jumping to conclusions or putting too much stock in correlation, at least not without considering other causes and personal bias; something which I've long suspected and saw in this book is sorely lacking in economics.) This book could get torn apart or swept aside and ignored, or it could be a drop in a revolution in changing how we measure our society and what we focus on when making policy. I sorely hope it's the latter although I expect it won't be. Either way this book is definitely worth a read, and it's well written enough that even if you aren't keen on Pillings conclusions it's not a slog to get there.

[Femi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't normally read books about economy but this one covered a lot of aspects of what we think when we talk about growth and GDP (quite hefty too, 400-ish pages). Full review soon!

[Crimson 786 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Growth Delusion was my first proper introduction to various models of economic measurement. Today GDP is taken as standard unit of growth. David Pilling has attempted to show us how our existing model of measuring growth and economic development (GDP) is flawed. For example, Any measure that values a gun several times more than a bottle of milk is bound to raise serious questions about its relevance to human progress (A question asked by HDI founding Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq). Other interesting questions asked include why a woman making beds, doing grocery, washing at home doesn't contribute to economy when another woman doing same at an old age house does?? Simply because she is not in the state's tax system?
David also draws our attention to issues such as natural resources and their rapid consumption, renewable energy, other models of measuring growth such as GPI, Green economy, HDI, etc.
Overall, an excellent read.

[Otto Lehto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lightweight, delightful, balanced. The book is no miracle, but it surveys the contemporary literature and debate around GDP in an evenhanded manner. Written by a journalist, the book carries the DNA of an extended midbrow journal article. Without much analytical depth, it scratches an itch without providing any lasting remedies.

Superficiality is a cost to be paid by attempting to appeal to the everyman, but few authors embrace the cautious, noncommittal middle position as ardently as Pilling does. Reputable sources are generally accepted with minimal objections and moderate criticisms are only included if they jive with the consensus perspective that emerges from these sources. This makes the book delightfully sane, but also a little bit boring and unadventurous.

Weak on theory and short on credible suggestions as it may be, the Growth Delusion is a pleasant piece of prose. It contains enough interesting data to make up for its distinct lack of original thesis.

[Mariann Tóth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is quite misleading, I thought the book is on economic growth, its limits and other sustainibility issues. Unfotunately it was not the case, I could read hundreds of pages solely about GDP.

[Koit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The question Mr Pilling considers here is a very straightforward one, and it is whether our statistics represents the measures we care about. In short, the answer is a resounding ‘no’ in the most important field — the economy — that we care about. It is suitable to be reviewing this going into a new year as the one New Year’s Greeting I listened to included pointed references to economic growth.

I have for a while now been disillusioned with GDP. GDP has its definite problems (though also its uses as Mr Pilling relates). There are some alternatives, and popularising the use of these alternatives — whether PPP, GPI, HDI, or something else — is the way to develop past the situation in which our targets emphasise sustainability but our main measure notes activity of any kind.

Yet, what makes GDP even worse than its simple statistical bleakness is the way everything in today’s world has come to represent the adage “growth is good, stagnation bad”. It should be clear that growth for the sake of growth — growth that is either unsustainable or causes more negative societal aspects than the cost of the project — is not worth it. It is the quality of peoples’ lives that should be improving.

Mr Pilling makes for a very good case on these issues. The prose is good, and the narrative flows rather well. The way the author focusses on China, India, Nigeria, Canada, and other places in turn in his effort to expand on what measures make sense for which communities and also when and where GDP fails these people makes for an entertaining read.

I would definitely recommend this.

This review was originally posted on my blog.

[Kim Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

GDP in the US has more than doubled since 2000, but we don't seem to be any happier with our lot. Huh? I thought it was the economy, stupid.

David Pilling addresses many of the questions I had about why the measures that economists and politicians tout, which deign to explain “how we are doing”, are not tracking with our lived experiences. I learned a lot from this book and recommend it to anyone who is interested in GDP, growth, wealth, well-being, and the pitfalls of measuring it all.

Pilling makes the case that we need to look beyond GDP for economic and political guidance. GDP is an outdated and arbitrary index. Its worst flaw (my opinion) is its failure to discount costs it doesn’t measure (harms to the natural environment, community cohesion, public trust, health, etc). Pilling mentions other proposed indices such as the Genuine Progress Index, Human Development Index, and Green GDP, to name a few. These alternative indices are interesting to read about but raise problems of their own. Because no one index perfectly captures all that we care about, he advocates that we use multiple measurements together to get the full picture.

Pilling strikes a balance between criticizing economic indices and conceding that some statistics are important for us to make informed decisions. I, myself, am quite skeptical of anything that seeks to put a number on well-being or on a subjective benefit, but we live in a world of “big data” and, unfortunately, it’s not going away. The problems with assigning numbers to everything will only grow more pronounced over time, so let’s at least optimize for what we actually care about.

[Ralu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pilling pare să se fi asezat alaturi de mine la imaginara masa a negocierilor mondiale cu privire la modul chestionabil de masurare a PIB-ului. E un bun companion, in ciuda faptului ca are tendinte grandilomane pe alocuri facand uz de lucruri deja super cunoscute si ca pe deasupra pare sa se scarpine uneori cu mana stanga la urechea dreapta, pierzand din interesul auditorului. Cu toate astea n-am simtit nevoia sa-l contrazic in punctele esentiale ale cartii asa ca l-am pasuit si cand a batut campii. Economia nu e la fel de stiinta ca matematica, datele statistice mereu sunt folosite in scopuri politice, cresterea economica nu inseamna automat o crestere a nivelului de trai individual, existenta unor activitati necuantificabile, importanta investitei in sectorului public de educatie si de sanatate se numara printre principalele premise. Pe la pagina 82, 83 a editiei in limba romana, chiar am simtit nevoia sa-l imbratisez si sa-i spun “hai, merci fain!”

p.s pare ca am vorbit despre altceva, nu ? Asta e si stilul lui. 😅

[Anthony Watt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growth leads to death

Grow and grow and grow for infinity on a planet with finite resources and what happens? The death of humans as we know them now!

A bit dramatic perhaps but this book highlights the insanity of the way we live and measure. The lack of value placed on essential things and in the UK free things from the government like healthcare.

It doesn’t say what the magical measure is but it provides examples of better ways of measuring a successful country. We need to stop growing and become sustainable. In the long term nothing else works.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

truth in advertising--the jacket described this as a provocative book, and it was. Objectively argues for the need to consider new metrics to describe a nation's economy, augmenting the historical use of GDP, which considers too many factors, all of which are assumed to be positive. Compelling and thoughtful, particular as it related to prospective policy.

[Pascal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly about the limitations of GDP as a measurement, quite in depth and technical at times. offers some other alternatives that capture environmental impacts and wellbeing also. Bit dry and limited in its discussion.

[Emily Bubble · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest economics books I’ve read in a long while. Witty and full of wisdom.
Great for any level of economic thinking and a must read to bring the traditional economic concepts to the 21st century.
I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I did, it genuinely had me nodding along, chuckling and rethinking how we think about economies.

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting premise and well-rounded execution. A tale of GDP and its enormous flaws as a proxy for human well-being, and along with it a timely critique of progress and our insatiable thirst for it. Very fluid writing and an absolute joy to read, a rarity in economics books.

[Christian Oltra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro interesante sobre el PIB, la dificultad de medirlo y sus limitaciones. Bien escrito, interesante y entretenido. Buena edición en español. Bastante recomendable.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does More Equal Happiness or Prosperity?

We are conditioned to look at GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a measure of economic progress for the country. The economists love this number. It gives them a standard to measure against. But, for the average person what does the GDP say about our lives? Are we happier because it’s high? Is the quality of life better? These are interesting questions tackled by The Growth Delusion.

This book, while examining difficult economic concepts, is written for the average person to understand. This may not be appropriate for experts, but it gives the average person insight into what the experts are talking about. Economists are traditionally caught up in looking at the wealth of nations and ranking countries on their economic progress. They believe that they understand the workings of the economy and are therefore justified in telling people whether they should be happy with the way the country is going.

In this book, the author discusses three major areas: the problems of growth; what growth tells us about ourselves and the developing world; and finally a look at the factors that relate to happiness and well-being. Although I enjoyed the first two sections, I found the last section most persuasive. The Industrial Revolution was great for the wealthy, but the poor suffered mightily. Are we heading for the same problems with our emphasis on growth? The poor and middle class plus the environment may suffer most for our emphasis on growth.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

[Philippa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5