A better way to measure the nation’s wellbeing | Letter
by Guardian Staff from Economics | The Guardian on (#6SDNQ)
Dr Jon Mulberg on why GDP isn't the best gauge of economic health
The use of alternative metrics to GDP has a long history within the environmental movement (Housework to green energy: the new markers of growth in rival metric to GDP, 19 November).
GDP was never meant to be a measure of national or even of economic wellbeing. It simply measures sales, and is always the same figure as national expenditure. The person who invented the measure - SimonKuznets - called it national income, which it also mirrors.
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