Like many great inventions, gross domestic product has been used in ways that its creators never intended and might not approve. Given that it misses so much that contributes to human wellbeing – and excludes even more – why do we continue to rely on it as our primary welfare indicator?
MILAN – In a year of populist discontent across the West and narrowing prospects for major emerging economies, the future may end up being shaped in an unlikely setting: the world’s statistical offices. Among ordinary people and specialists alike, there seems to be an increasingly powerful sense of dissatisfaction not only with the pace of economic growth, but with how that growth is defined and measured.
MILAN – In a year of populist discontent across the West and narrowing prospects for major emerging economies, the future may end up being shaped in an unlikely setting: the world’s statistical offices. Among ordinary people and specialists alike, there seems to be an increasingly powerful sense of dissatisfaction not only with the pace of economic growth, but with how that growth is defined and measured.