What the Experts Are Saying
“Gross output [GO] is the natural measure of the production sector, while net output [GDP] is appropriate as a measure of welfare. Both are required in a complete system of accounts.”
– Dale Jorgenson, Steve Landefeld and William Nordhaus A New Architecture for the U. S. National Accounts (2006) Chicago University Press
“This is a great leap forward in national accounting. Gross Output, long advocated by Mark Skousen, will have a profound and manifestly positive impact on economic policy.”
– Steve Forbes, Forbes magazine (2014)
“The learning curves of growth are not confined to the final product (GDP). Vital learning accumulates through all the processes of production measured in gross output. GO captures this central reality of economics. By pioneering the concept of GO and spearheading the movement for its adoption, Mark Skousen has made a key contribution to the supply side economics of information theory.”
– George Gilder, Knowledge and Power
“The next economics will have to be centered on supply and the factors of production rather than being functions of demand. I’ve read Mark Skousen’s monumental book twice, and it comes the closest to achieving this goal.”
– Peter F. Drucker, Claremont Graduate University
“National income accounting has long been unfathomably flawed and worse by the decade but Mark Skousen’s introduction of gross output (GO) has been a big step forward in portraying a more total picture of the economy and where and when it’s vulnerable. Kudos to Mark for it being adopted.”
– Ken Fisher, CEO, Fisher Investments, Forbes columnist
GO is better correlated with financial-price movements than most of the other indicators. It tends to portray the economy as more cyclical than real GDP does, the recession of 2008-09 as deeper, and the recovery as slower. The universal use of real GDP as a measure of the economy’s vitality is subject to misunderstandings, pitfalls, and criticism — especially in the short run. GDP includes only ‘final’ goods and services, leaving out the huge economy that consists of businesses buying and selling intermediate goods to one another.”
– David Ranson, chief economist, H. C. Wainwright Economics.
Now, it’s official. With Gross Output (GO), the U.S. government will provide official data on the supply side of the economy and its structure. How did this counter revolution come about? There have been many counter revolutionaries, but one stands out: Mark Skousen of Chapman University. Skousen’s book The Structure of Production, which was first published in 1990, backed his advocacy with heavy artillery. Indeed, it is Skousen who is, in part, responsible for the government’s move to provide a clearer, more comprehensive picture of the economy, with GO.”
– Steve H. Hanke, Johns Hopkins University (2014)
“The two most important works on ‘Austrian’ capital theory since Hayek’s winning of the Nobel Prize are Roger Garrison’s Time and Money and Mark Skousen’s Structure of Production. All members of the Austrian School should take his book seriously.”
– Richard Ebeling, Northwood University
“Congratulations on your work. It has been a long slog to get the national accounts to introduce innovative measures, and Steve Landefeld [long-time director of the BEA] has been a superstar in this respect… This will open up the potential for new insights into the behavior of the economy.”
– William D. Nordhaus, Yale University
Controversies (responding to the critics)
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