Is it Time to Replace the Gross Domestic Product?
A cursory search on the internet for a definition of the economic indicator known as the Gross Domestic Product returns a wide range of hits with various wordings that ultimately come down to the same thing. A nation’s Gross Domestic Product can effectively be defined as a statistic that considers the final monetary value of all the economic activity produced within a given nation; it is widely considered the definitive measure of the relative strength or weakness of an economy. Breaking that general definition down further, the Gross Domestic Product is typically computed by adding up all the various types of income produced within the country-income such as wages, interest, investments, federal purchases and consumption. The most common equation for determining the final Gross Domestic Product figure is consumption + investment + exports – imports. Despite the fact that this system is deeply flawed, the Gross Domestic Product is still used almost exclusively as the best indicator of
