IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nwe/eajour/y2024i1p59-85.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Inception to Alternative: A Case of GDP

Author

Listed:
  • Shashank Vikram Pratap Singh

    (Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India)

  • V.K. Shrotryia

    (Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India)

Abstract

GDP became the yardstick for measuring the size of an economy and its level of development after its invention in the 1930s. It is the result of an intellectual battle that began with the Political Arithmetic in 1665 and continued through the Great Depression and World War II. Economic progress has determined the speed of development, according to Clark, Kuznets, Keynes, and Stone, through production, income, and output. It was the great invention of the time in terms of measuring and governing policies for economic progress. However, it is now being misused and even used to measure things for which it was never intended. Furthermore, this laid the groundwork for its place in the twenty-first century. Academics and practitioners, as well as governments around the world, are now attempting to look beyond GDP and focus on developing alternatives. This academic paper attempts to investigate the invention of GDP and various alternatives developed so far worldwide. The paper contributes to the literature on "Beyond GDP".

Suggested Citation

  • Shashank Vikram Pratap Singh & V.K. Shrotryia, 2024. "From Inception to Alternative: A Case of GDP," Economic Alternatives, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria, issue 1, pages 59-85, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nwe:eajour:y:2024:i:1:p:59-85
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.unwe.bg/doi/eajournal/2024.1/EA.2024.1.05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    GDP; political economy; Beyond GDP; History of GDP;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • B10 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - General
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General
    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:nwe:eajour:y:2024:i:1:p:59-85. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Vanya Lazarova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/unweebg.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.