Political arithmetic: Simon Kuznets and the empirical tradition in economics - 44622

This title tells the story of economist Simon Kuznets, the founding of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the creation of the concept of GNP, which for the first time enabled us to measure the performance of entire economies.

The book weaves together the many strands of political and economic thought and historical pressures that together created the demand for more detailed economic thinking and shows how economists such as Kuznets rose to the occasion and in the process built a discipline whose knowledge could be put to practical use in everyday decision-making.