New Delhi, June 1 -- In mainstream economics, description is routinely treated as secondary to analysis. Labelling a work as 'purely descriptive' conveys dismissiveness. Yet, as Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen observed in a seminal 1980 paper, every act of description involves choices. Whether we are describing a historical event, an individual or a country, what we choose to include and what we leave out can be critical. Description shapes perception. And perception, in turn, can profoundly influence behaviour.

Describing the state of a country's economy is a complicated task. In the past, scholars wrote lengthy volumes debating whether one country was doing better than another. But over time, globally, a single measure has come to...