IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iza/izawol/journl2022n368.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gross domestic product: Are other measures needed?

Author

Listed:
  • Barbara M. Fraumeni

    (Central University of Finance and Economics, China, NBER, USA, and IZA, Germany)

Abstract

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the key indicator of the health of an economy and can be easily compared across countries. But it has limitations. GDP tells what is going on today, but does not inform about sustainability of growth. The majority of time is spent in home production, yet the value of this time is not included in GDP. GDP does not measure happiness, so residents can be dissatisfied even when GDP is rising. In addition, GDP does not consider environmental factors, reflect what individuals do outside paid employment, or even measure the current or future potential human capital of a country. Hence, complementary measures may help to show a more comprehensive picture of an economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbara M. Fraumeni, 2022. "Gross domestic product: Are other measures needed?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 368-368, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:2022:n:368
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/368/pdfs/gross-domestic-product-are-other-measures-needed.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://wol.iza.org/articles/gross-domestic-product-are-other-measures-needed
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. Steven Landefeld & Eugene P. Seskin & Barbara M. Fraumeni, 2008. "Taking the Pulse of the Economy: Measuring GDP," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 193-216, Spring.
    2. Diane Coyle, 2014. "GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10183.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Feldstein, 2017. "Underestimating the Real Growth of GDP, Personal Income, and Productivity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 145-164, Spring.
    2. V. K. Shrotryia & Shashank Vikram Pratap Singh, 2020. "Measuring Progress Beyond GDP: A Theoretical Perspective," Emerging Economy Studies, International Management Institute, vol. 6(2), pages 143-165, November.
    3. Clements, Michael P. & Beatriz Galvao, Ana, 2010. "Real-time Forecasting of Inflation and Output Growth in the Presence of Data Revisions," Economic Research Papers 270771, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    4. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    5. Michael P. Clements, 2014. "US Inflation Expectations and Heterogeneous Loss Functions, 1968–2010," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 1-14, January.
    6. Sunghun Lim, 2021. "Global Agricultural Value Chains and Structural Transformation," NBER Chapters, in: Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Martín Almuzara & Dante Amengual & Gabriele Fiorentini & Enrique Sentana, 2022. "GDP Solera. The Ideal Vintage Mix," Working Papers wp2022_2204, CEMFI.
    8. Haddad, Eduardo & Araújo, Inácio, 2022. "Regional Science Meets the Past: What Do Coin Finds Tell Us About the Ancient Spatial Economy?," TD NEREUS 2-2022, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    9. Hoff, Jens V. & Rasmussen, Martin M.B. & Sørensen, Peter Birch, 2021. "Barriers and opportunities in developing and implementing a Green GDP," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    10. Nicholas Oulton, 2018. "GDP and the System of National Accounts: Past, Present and Future," Discussion Papers 1802, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Jun 2018.
    11. Ifrim, Mihaela & Lazorec, Maria & Pintilescu, Carmen, 2022. "Assessing the economic resilience in central and eastern EU countries. A multidimensional approach," MPRA Paper 117912, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Michael P. Clements, 2014. "Anticipating Early Data Revisions to US GDP and the Effects of Releases on Equity Markets," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2014-06, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    13. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Gary Gorton & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2012. "Risk Topography," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 149-176.
    14. Clemens Hetschko & Louisa von Reumont & Ronnie Schöb, 2019. "Embedding as a pitfall for survey‐based welfare indicators: evidence from an experiment," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 182(2), pages 517-539, February.
    15. Elert, Niklas & Stenkula, Mikael, 2020. "Intrapreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive," Working Paper Series 1367, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    16. Sandra Waddock, 2016. "Foundational Memes for a New Narrative About the Role of Business in Society," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 91-105, September.
    17. von Reumont, Louisa & Schöb, Ronnie & Hetschko, Clemens, 2017. "Embedding Effects in the OECD Better Life Index," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168133, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Cameron Hepburn & Eric Beinhocker & J. Doyne Farmer & Alexander Teytelboym, 2014. "Resilient and Inclusive Prosperity within Planetary Boundaries," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 22(5), pages 76-92, September.
    19. Andrew C. Chang & Trace J. Levinson, 2023. "Raiders of the lost high‐frequency forecasts: New data and evidence on the efficiency of the Fed's forecasting," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(1), pages 88-104, January.
    20. Mokyr, Joel, 2018. "The past and the future of innovation: Some lessons from economic history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 13-26.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    GDP; macroeconomic measures; national income accounting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:2022:n:368. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.