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"Measuring America: How Economic Growth Came to Define American Greatness in the Late Twentieth Century"

By Rich Fisher

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kwgs/local-kwgs-980083.mp3

Tulsa, Oklahoma – On today's ST, we speak with the author and scholar (and former New York Times reporter) Andrew Yarrow, whose new book is called "Measuring America: How Economic Growth Came to Define American Greatness in the Late Twentieth Century." Who are we --- as Americans, as workers, as individuals --- if we are no longer the world's greatest economic powerhouse? A sobering question, perhaps, but one that might well confront us someday. To this end, Yarrow's work looks to the past as well as the future. Indeed, "Measuring America" examines the full course of the so-called American Century to examine the rise and widespread adoption of economic thinking in the United States after World War II --- from the federal government's development of the gross national product (GNP) figure in the wake of the Great Depression, to the creation or application of various (and often complex) money- and job-related statistics and indicators, to the economic journalism that originally took root in such landmark publications as the Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine. The book's concluding chapter then looks ahead to what the economics of the 21st century might have in store.