<p>Standard measure of economic activity is real GDP per capita. If you are looking into actual economic activity that is one of the main measures to look at.</p>
<p>However, when laymen talk about “economy improving” it is often vague term that is used as a stand in for some multidimensional measure of life quality. For that looking at real GDP doesn’t suffice. You would first need to clarify in that case what aspect of economy you consider important.</p>
<p>PS:</p>
<p>It’s not really possible to see causal effect of a presidency on economy simply by looking at variables during presidency.</p>
<p>Most economies are either market or mixed economies and presidents don’t control them and have only some indirect limited influence.</p>
<p>Many economic variables react with lag that can also change over time.</p>
<p>Most economic variables are endogenous and hence it’s unclear whether some change in economy was caused by new president or whether new president was elected because of changes in economy.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that causal analysis is impossible but you can’t just look at how variables vary over time. You need at least some quasi-experimental empirical strategy (eg 2SLS, RDD etc).</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-19T20:10:46.603Z
2024-12-19T20:10:46.603Z
1muflon1
<p>Have a look at this <a href="https://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/themes/economy.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/themes/economy.html</a> . This lists a few of the indicators that can help you estimate the health of an economy. However, unless you incorporate the appropriate counterfactuals in your model, it can give you biased estimates. Every change in political landscape of a region brings about changes in the ideologies of people. While it may affect some sectors positively, it can affect the others negatively. One possible way could be comparing presidents with similar ideologies(or political parties) and what kind of changes they bring with each cycle in the economy.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-21T08:09:49.997Z
2024-12-21T08:09:49.997Z
ss91
<p>My name is Felix and I am currently doing private research on Presidents and how the economy changed during their presidency. Basically I will be looking at an economic variable and seeing how it changed overtime by president.
I am messaging you to ask what things you would use to determine the health of an economy? For example, GDP, Unemployment, etc. What indicators would you use to determine if an economy has improved or gotten worse? Thanks!</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-21T15:19:51.720Z
It seems to me that this problem is misstated: "How the economy changed during a given presidency" is a question that can be answered by a descriptive study applied to a given time period as defined by the presidency under consideration. However, the presidency only serves to define the timeframe in your question. I do not believe this is what you are really interested in: I believe you are somehow interested in relating the economic development described to the policies of the presidency. Otherwise, why is a plot of the GDP development for the last 50 years, not an answer?
Jesper Hybel
<macroeconomics>
What is Most Important
Felix Austead
# What is Most Important

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-12-19)

My name is Felix and I am currently doing private research on Presidents and how the economy changed during their presidency. Basically I will be looking at an economic variable and seeing how it changed overtime by president.
I am messaging you to ask what things you would use to determine the health of an economy? For example, GDP, Unemployment, etc. What indicators would you use to determine if an economy has improved or gotten worse? Thanks!

**Tags:** macroeconomics
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: It seems to me that this problem is misstated: "How the economy changed during a given presidency" is a question that can be answered by a descriptive study applied to a given time period as defined by the presidency under consideration. However, the presidency only serves to define the timeframe in your question. I do not believe this is what you are really interested in: I believe you are somehow interested in relating the economic development described to the policies of the presidency. Otherwise, why is a plot of the GDP development for the last 50 years, not an answer?  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2024-12-19. Score: 1

Standard measure of economic activity is real GDP per capita. If you are looking into actual economic activity that is one of the main measures to look at.

However, when laymen talk about “economy improving” it is often vague term that is used as a stand in for some multidimensional measure of life quality. For that looking at real GDP doesn’t suffice. You would first need to clarify in that case what aspect of economy you consider important.

PS:

It’s not really possible to see causal effect of a presidency on economy simply by looking at variables during presidency.

Most economies are either market or mixed economies and presidents don’t control them and have only some indirect limited influence.

Many economic variables react with lag that can also change over time.

Most economic variables are endogenous and hence it’s unclear whether some change in economy was caused by new president or whether new president was elected because of changes in economy.

This doesn’t mean that causal analysis is impossible but you can’t just look at how variables vary over time. You need at least some quasi-experimental empirical strategy (eg 2SLS, RDD etc).


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2024-12-21. Score: 0

Have a look at this <https://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/themes/economy.html> . This lists a few of the indicators that can help you estimate the health of an economy. However, unless you incorporate the appropriate counterfactuals in your model, it can give you biased estimates. Every change in political landscape of a region brings about changes in the ideologies of people. While it may affect some sectors positively, it can affect the others negatively. One possible way could be comparing presidents with similar ideologies(or political parties) and what kind of changes they bring with each cycle in the economy.


---

