You get what you measure. Pick the wrong number for a nation’s progress and you don’t just describe it wrongly — you send it chasing the wrong thing. This chapter is about the numbers economists use to size up a country: where income is counted, what a dollar actually buys, and why a rising figure can hide a stalled life. Each case is a real country caught in the gap between the number and the truth.
A government pays a reward for every dead cobra — and ends up with more cobras than it started with. Why the target you set changes the behaviour you get.
Angola’s oil is pumped by foreign firms; Bangladesh’s workers wire money home from abroad. Same year, mirror-image gap — and it’s all about where you draw the line.
By one measure the average American is 33 times richer than the average Indian. Price a haircut the way locals actually pay for it and the gap collapses to eight.
Two people earn exactly the same. One is healthy in a quiet town; one is ill in a conflict zone. Why income alone was never going to measure a good life.