Just as in America, in Britain too the story told by official statistics does not always match people’s lived experience. That is especially true in places like Newcastle, a former shipbuilding city, which lost out to competition from Asia in the 1970s and has seen living standards stagnate ever since. The U.S. economy, we are told, is booming. In the past two quarters, gross domestic product has risen by more than 3%, the stock market is soaring and unemployment is down to a 17-year low of 4.1%. Many people, though, don’t feel that upside.The perception gap is huge. Unemployment, more broadly measured, is higher than the headline number suggests because many people have simply given up looking for work or are working in part-time jobs when they want a full-time job. One of the prime faults of GDP is that it deals in averages and aggregates. Aggregates hide the nuances of inequality. And averages don’t tell us very much at all. Barring a few recessions, the U.S. economy has been on a near relentless upward path since the 1950s. Yet according to a Pew Research Center report, the average hourly wage for nonmanagement private-sector work was $20.67 in 2014, a measly $1.49 higher than in 1964, adjusted for inflation.
Studies suggest that people care more about relative than absolute wealth. If that is true, then as a minority have become richer, the majority have grown more miserable. In a famous experiment carried out at Emory University, two capuchin monkeys were put side by side and given cucumbers as a reward for performing a task. When one of the monkeys was given better-tasting grapes instead, the monkey receiving cucumbers became distraught, flinging its now despised reward at its trainer. The problems with using GDP as a barometer go beyond masking inequality. Invented in the U.S. in the 1930s, the figure is a child of the manufacturing age–good at measuring physical production but not the services that dominate modern economies. How would GDP measure the quality of mental-health care or the availability of day-care centers and parks in your area? Even the Belarusian economist who practically invented GDP, had doubts about his creation. He did not like the fact that it counted armaments and financial speculation as positive outputs. Above all, he said, GDP should never be confused with well-being. That suggests we need to find different ways of measuring our success. For the most part, we have become enraptured with a single measure that offers only limited information.
当今，世界各国的实力较量涉及诸多因素，其中最重要的一个要素是市场规模。哪个国家的市场大，对其他国家的吸引力就越大，也越容易处于领先地位。中国有14亿人口，这就决定了它拥有世界上最大的消费市场。经济学家都认为，过去这些年，中国市场发展的速度是世界上最快的。
连续九年，中国是世界上最大的汽车市场。2016年，美国销售了1,700万辆汽车，同年中国则销售了2,400万辆。其中在中国的美国合资公司销售的汽车占比很大。中国还是世界上最大的智能手机市场，也是最大的服装、电商、国内旅游和农产品市场。中国市场展现了惊人的发展潜力。在中国，中产和富裕阶层人士迅速增长，年轻人有了全新的消费习惯，线上线下销售渠道覆盖了全国各地。随着医疗、养老产业不断发展，还将进一步提升中国人的消费能力。
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