Does rebasing make economic sense?

Economists love their jargon. Last week, they treated us to a new one - debasing. In layperson’s language, debasing simply means recalculating the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country. Innovations spawn new goods and services, which affect the size of the economy. Two decades ago, we had neither M-Pesa nor mobile banking.

We never had oil and other activities. That increases the size of the economy. However, the term debasing historically had negative connotations. It meant making coins less valuable by melting them down and adding less precious metal to make new ones. After including the new services and goods in the calculation of GDP, our economy has ‘expanded’ by 25 per cent, lifting Kenya into the league of the top ten economies in Africa. Is that good or bad for our 50-year-old country?