A few days ago I beat up on the Post editorial board for yet another failed attempt at dispassionate analysis in their "ideas primary." The Post attacked the leading Democratic presidential candidates for their statements on trade. It was especially angry that they attacked NAFTA, which the Post pronounced as a great success, especially for Mexico. To support its case, the Post told readers that Mexico's GDP had more than quadrupled since 1987. As I pointed out, this is absurd. Mexico has actually had slow growth for a developing country over the last twenty years. (NAFTA went into effect in 1994, so I'm not sure where 1987 came from in any case.) According to data from the IMF, Mexico's GDP has risen by 83 percent since 1987, which is considerably short of quadrupling by most definitions of the term. Remarkably, my post prompted an investigation by Michael Dobbs, the reporter who runs the Post's "Fact Checker" section, which assesses claims made by the presidential candidates and their campaigns. We had several lengthy discussions in which I tried to explain the measurement issues involved. (Mr Dobbs did catch two errors in my original post. I had used a wrong number to calculate 67 percent GDP growth for Mexico, instead of the 83 percent figure obtained from the IMF numbers. I had also used dollar signs when I meant constant value pesos. Unfortunately, my proofreader doesn't come in until 7:00 A.M. and I had done the initial post at 5:00.) Anyhow, Mr. Dobbs did a write-up of this issue yesterday in which he seemed to come to the conclusion that there are different ways to measure growth, and you get to pick the one you like best. While I tried to explain that this is not true, I apparently could not convince the Post's fact checker. So, rather than explain the argument as to why my measure (constant prices, own currency) is the appropriate measure, let's just say that the Post should use the same measure everywhere. So, if the Post wants to use the methodology from its NAFTA editorial to report GDP growth for Mexico (purchasing power parity, measured in current international dollars), presumably it should use the same methodology to report GDP growth for other countries. According to the Washington Post methodology, Argentina's economy has grown by 73.4 percent from 2002 to 2007, an average of 11.6 percent annually. Venezuela has done almost as well, growing 64.6 percent, an average annual rate of 10.5 percent. We find that even the welfare states of West Europe do very well by the Post methodology, with France growing by 25.7 percent (4.7 percent annually), Germany growing 22.8 percent (4.2 percent annually), and Italy growing 20.5 percent (3.8 percent annually). Even Japan has a dazzling growth record with the Washington Post methodology, growing 26.9 percent from 2002 to 2007, an average of 4.9 percent a year. The Post has never used these numbers in discussing growth for other countries. This is not a debatable point. The Post used an inappropriate methodology to try to convince readers that NAFTA has been a glowing success in Mexico. It hasn't been a glowing success, and it is time that the Post came clean with its readers on this point.
--Dean Baker
