National Income and Living Standards

About the lecture

In this module, we extend our discussions of economics by considering the uses and limitations of using national income data to measure living standards. We focus particularly on: (i) the need for a common currency (purchasing power parity) that accounts for differing costs of living when comparing GDP across countries; (ii) the exclusion of non-market activities from the GDP measure of national income; (iii) the need to account for differing income distributions; and (iv) the lack of information provided by GDP regarding other metrics of wellbeing such as health and education.

About the lecturer

Dr Paul Segal is a Reader in Economics of Development at King's College London. He specialises in researching global poverty and inequality, the economics of natural resources, and economic history. He has published widely within these areas, including Who Are the Global Top 1%? and The Economy: Economics for a Changing World. He has also written policy articles for FT.com and has collaborated with Oxfam Mexico to undertake empirical fieldwork in Mexico City, analysing multidimensional inequalities.