Cutting across party lines and ideologies, development (translated as economic wellbeing) is increasingly being treated as the principal driver of electoral success. This is because economics has the ability to come out with quantified measures that express the improvement or diminution of human wellbeing.

This has served as a handy tool for policymakers as well as politicians. Statistics such as the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, the inflation rate and the poverty ratio are popular measures, while many others such as the trade and fiscal deficits and interest rates are less familiar to the layman but nevertheless are emerging as key elements in campaigns.

The dismal science Economics enjoys a dominant status in electoral battles. The incumbent government would try to convince the electorate with conventional statistics that it is faring economically much better than earlier, while the aspirant group may produce an alternate set of figures for the same indicators to counter that claim.

Why then does uncertainty weigh heavily on the vote-seeker and the voter? The truth is despite the race with physical sciences, economics remains a social science dealing with human perceptions, responses and relations. And, more important, politicians have not kept pace with the subject, as economics itself is more aligned to the complex aspirations that define a society.

In a recent article in Nature , Costanza and his team of colleagues not only reminded us that GDP was meant only to measure market transactions rather than human well being, but also alerted policymakers that newer developments in the subject have made other more suitable measures available to assess what makes life worthwhile.

Is GDP enough to measure complex outcomes? A specific policy measure taken by a government can lead to various possible results (think stock prices and exchange rates) depending on how different human beings respond .

Even the same result can prove to be a benefit to one but an assault on another’s economic fortunes. Even if we assume that it largely benefits the maximum number, it is still difficult to tell how strongly the beneficiary will perceive the positive or the negative implications. Besides, how do we measure the benefits?

Just crude estimates This brings us back to GDP growth, and perhaps to inflation and the poverty rate. It is now not unknown to most in India that these figures are at best crude estimates with several weaknesses.

Controversies abound on the specified poverty line as a benchmark reference for the reporting of the ‘number of people’ moving in and out of poverty and what prices should really be considered to convey the inflation that matters.

Above all, with economies opening up to trade and some form of international governance emerging today, economists across the world are increasingly feeling uneasy about the significance of inequality as a scourge on the growing economy (see IMF’s work on income inequality 2014 and the instant popularity of Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty First Century ).

Statistics can only be a tool for managers or policymakers. Perceptions are the last word for consumers and voters. Politicians would do well to move away from self-deceptive and obsolete methods, and from comparing the non-comparable. Moving beyond sophisticated number crunching to brass tacks is not a bad idea. It is never too naive to go down to the field to get an actual feel of people’s perceptions.

(The writer is an associate professor at the Institute of Economic Growth)

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