When we speak of economic performance, both at a country and at a business level, we tend to speak in numbers as these provide benchmarks as units of measurement.

So we speak in terms of a country’s economic progress by referring to its gross domestic product. In recent years, Europe became obsessed with the level of fiscal deficit. The success of a business is measured by the profit it makes.

In such a context it would be easy to think of economics as just being a numbers game. If one gets the numbers right then one is considered to have been successful. However, is this really so?

Let us take a practical example. The gross domestic product is generally considered as a way of measuring a country’s growth and its economic success. However there is also agreement that the gross domestic product is not necessarily indicative of the quality of life in that country.

The quality of life may be dependent on a number of emotional and intangible factors – in addition to rational ones – that are not easily quantifiable. There are countries that have a higher gross domestic product than that of Malta and yet they do not enjoy a quality of life that is better than that enjoyed by people in Malta.

Equally, a company may make less profit than its competitors, but that company may be more sustainable in the long run than its competitors.

We cannot analyse, assess and evaluate economic challenges simply through the lens of numbers

It may be making less profit today because it is investing more in research and development or in renewable energy or it is spending money on social projects in the community where it is located. In such cases one should not consider the company to be less successful. Some weeks ago I had written about the need not to sacrifice everything on the altar of the economy.

I had argued that if we seek to resolve economic problems by removing from the discussion table other considerations, then we would be excluding the human person from being at the centre of policymaking.

This is why I state in the title of this week’s contribution: economics beyond numbers. The needs of a human person and numbers do not necessarily sit happily next to each other. What triggered my thinking is a book by Ladislau Dowbor, which I am currently reading, called The Broken Mosaic – For an economics beyond equations.

Mr Dowbor says that we need to admit that understanding economics is a most essential thing if we wish to understand what is happening in the world. On the other hand it cannot be our only perspective of the world. What happens in any society and the way society changes and why, is to a large extent attributable to the economic interests of individuals and businesses. For example if we did not understand economics, we may not fully comprehend the whole debate around climate change or why millions of children die of hunger.

So we should not really seek to ditch economics; but rather we must ensure that social and political issues are given equal, if not more, importance than economics. And we cannot analyse, assess and evaluate economic challenges simply through the lens of numbers.