Measuring the Health of our Local Economy

Fall 2021

There is considerable difficulty in measuring the health of Durham Region’s economy. Traditional methods of measuring economic growth and activity (such as GDP) are not available for Durham Region, so we often rely on numerous individual data points to get a sense of how the economy is performing. However, these data points often run in contradiction to one another (e.g. high unemployment and strong housing sales/prices) making it difficult to draw any conclusions on the state of the local economy.

Additionally, standard indicators of economic activity fail to capture the socio-economic conditions within a particular jurisdiction (e.g. poverty rates, inequality, etc.).

The purpose of this project was to perform preliminary research on how other jurisdictions or institutions have aggregated individual data points into single indexes of economic activity and socio-economic conditions. This involved researching current indexes used by other jurisdictions/institutions and providing a critical analysis of the methodology and approach. The goal of this project was to create recommendations on which approaches should be undertaken by the Region when creating its own indexes.