Goodbye GDP? 31 ways to replace the world's favourite measure of economic health

"The United Nations is considering 31 new indicators to "complement and go beyond" the world's main measure of economic growth, gross domestic product (GDP). The proposed new annual indicators include economic metrics such as household disposable income per person, and environmental data such as a country's greenhouse gas emissions and levels of particulate matter in the air. Also included are health and education indicators such as life expectancy and children's performance in reading and maths; as well as measures of wellbeing such as the proportion of women and girls subjected to physical and/or sexual violence."

"Fifteen of the 31 proposed indicators are already part of indicators for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The new indicators are in a report, Counting What Counts, written by a multidisciplinary committee of researchers and policymakers, co- chaired by economists Kaushik Basu, based at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Nora Lustig at Tulane University in New Orleans. The group was assembled last year by UN Secretary General António Guterres."

"Speaking at a launch event at UN headquarters in New York City on 7 May, Guterres called the report a "landmark step in correcting a longstanding blind spot in measuring progress". Attempts to dethrone GDP, including by the UN, go back at least three decades but this is the first time that a UN chief has responded to such a request from member states."

"There are different ways to measure GDP. According to one widely-used method, it is the sum of what a country's households and governments spend and what businesses invest. The rules for how it is calculated are agreed by the UN Statistical Commission, which is a kind of parliament of the world's national statistical agencies. But data are compiled and reported by individual countries. It is mentioned in numerous laws and is used as a benchmark in policymaking worldwide."

The United Nations is considering 31 new annual indicators to complement and go beyond GDP as the main measure of economic growth. The proposed indicators include economic measures such as household disposable income per person and environmental measures such as greenhouse gas emissions and particulate matter levels. Health and education indicators include life expectancy and children’s performance in reading and maths. Wellbeing measures include the proportion of women and girls subjected to physical and/or sexual violence. Fifteen indicators are already part of Sustainable Development Goals. The proposal appears in Counting What Counts, prepared by a multidisciplinary committee of researchers and policymakers assembled by the UN Secretary-General. The UN chief described the work as correcting a longstanding blind spot in measuring progress.

Read at Nature