In “The President as Economist: Scoring Economic
Performance From Harry Truman to Barack Obama,” I compare the 12
presidents since World War II using 17 economic indicators,
including growth in gross domestic product, rate of
unemployment, inflation, population below the poverty line,
increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, savings and
investment rates, exports and trade balances, federal budget
growth, and debt and federal taxes as a share of GDP.