Stanford University

MEASURING THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

GDP-B: A New Well-Being Metric in the Era of the Digital Economy

Researchers

Erik Brynjolfsson
David Nguyen
Jae Joon Lee
Avinash Collis

Abstract

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), though often used as a proxy for economic well-being, was not designed for this purpose and is inadequate. In our current research, we are building new metrics for measuring changes in consumer well-being that captures the value of currently unmeasured (often free) digital goods and services. By conducting hundreds of thousands of online surveys, we seek to build an index of digital goods and traditional goods such that we can develop a complement to GDP. With a full measure of economic output, our GDP-B Index will enable better management of our economy.

Related Research

How Should We Measure the Digital Economy?


In this article for the Harvard Business Review, Erik Brynjolfsson and Avinash Collis make the case for a new measure of the economy called GDP-B.

Stanford University