The Government wants to “update the tools to adequately measure progress, potential growth and economic resilience.”
Or in much simpler and understandable words: Ambicitizes modifying and expanding the calculation of the gross domestic product (GDP).
And he wants to do it at a time marked by the massive rebates that agencies such as the Bank of Spain, the Independent Fiscal Responsibility Authority (AIREF) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are carried out, precisely, of the expected GDP rebound for
This year and also for the next one.
This situation, of course, has generated not a few suspicia since it is still significant that the modification arises at such a negative moment for the executive, a point that from the government itself reject justifying that the change responds to an “international movement”
.
«It is not something that is born from economics, it is a long debate, which in the EU was raised for the first time in 2008, and in which the OECD or the World Bank is also», Includes Sources of the Department directed by
The first vice president, Nadia Calviño.
To give more relevance to its objective and strengthen that “international” character, the Government presented the measure in the Rimbombante Monitoring Event The Recovery: Beyond GDP, act by figures as remarkable as the European Economy Commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni;
The Nobel of Economy Joseph Stiglitz;
o The OECD Secretary General, Mathias Cormann.
In the event, concepts such as “GDP +” emerged, which would be something like “a better metric of the real size of the economy,” according to Gentiloni, or indicators and metrics “prepared for the future”, as Calviño pointed out.
But these words seem insufficient.
Of course for the opposition, but also among many of the economists who follow the day-to-day of the Spanish economy, which make forecasts and that, indeed, estimate what the evolution of GDP will be.
And one of those voices, a very important one, aiming the following: “The relevant is what Eurostat says,” and what the European Economic Office says is that GDP, as it is known, remains the reference.
In the same line, Javier Andrés, Doctor in Economics, Professor of the University of Valencia and a reference in the macroeconomic sphere of Spain is expressed.
In his opinion, “GDP is an imperfect measure of well-being and therefore better, but also another would be,” and “any change,” underlines, “that is not accepted by all [or most] of countries is.
Simply unacceptable for official purposes and therefore useless. ”
And what this official reference says is that the Spanish economy at all rebound as much as the government estees.
This was then said at the same time and in Congress the aforementioned Banco de España and Airof.
The first one advanced a “significant” reduction in its next forecasts, while the second put concrete figures: the rebound in 2021 will be 5.5%, far from 6.5% which economy embodied in the macroeconomic picture, and in 2022
It will stay at 6.3% while the official data reaches 7%.
This means that all the forecasts that are collected in the budgets and that have been developed from GDP, that although the government points out effectively the benchmark used, are incorrect.
