The radicals in academic finance would revamp the basic metric of economic performance. The familiar statistics on gross domestic product would be coupled with an index of financial risk-taking, so that the usual focus on growth would be tempered by a measure of the danger that growth might suddenly implode. This month of all months, one craves an equivalent risk-weighting to reflect political uncertainty. Amid the marathon reality show of the American elections, the tense theatre of the Chinese transition and the anarchic agitprop of eurozone politics, non-risk-weighted economic forecasts verge on irrelevance. Even with the US election behind us, this is not about to change.
激進的金融學者將改革衡量經濟表現的基本指標：除了人們熟知的國內生產毛額(GDP)統計數據以外，還將加上一個衡量金融冒險程度的指標。由此，人們通常對成長的關注，將被一個衡量成長突然崩潰風險的指標所調和。本月就特別需要一個風險加權指標來反映政治上的不確定性：美國馬拉松式的大選真人秀、中國氣氛緊張的領導層換屆、再加上歐元區政界大肆鼓吹無政府主義，讓非風險加權的經濟預測幾乎變得毫無價值。儘管美國大選已經結束，但這種情況在短時間內不會改變。