GDP revisited

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 After the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a country's economy, although Kuznets (1934) continued to warn to no avail against its use as a measure of welfare. He also highlighted some of its other deficiencies such as the focus on market activities and the exclusion of household production.

2 I’m persuaded that so-called green growth is something of a false panacea as currently promoted, fuelled by a mantra that is nothing more than a persuasive oxymoron. It is self-evident that future development must be cleaner and greener, but this doesn’t necessitate continuing with unquestioning support for the growth ethic per se. For example, in pursuit of the UN’s sustainable development goals (STGs) and as we fast approach the global limits to growth, logic dictates that the developed “north” should actually be doing less and perhaps even starting to contract, if only to create the bandwidth required to allow the developing countries of the “south” to make economic progress without further compromising the carrying capacity of the planet.