Academic Integrity: tutoring, explanations, and feedback — we don’t complete graded work or submit on a student’s behalf.

Then read the following articles and answer these questions: Is GDP a good measu

ID: 1231974 • Letter: T

Question

Then read the following articles and answer these questions:

Is GDP a good measure of economic well-being? Why, why not? What are its limitations? What are some factors that would lead to higher GDP in the U.S. but do not improve well-being?

Website::www.bea.gov

Website Articles

The Economist Measuring What Matters

The Donella Meadows Archive Why Should We Be Glad when the GNP Goes Up?

The Donella Meadows Archive Gross National Happiness Measures Quality Of Life

AMERICA 2.0: From Private Greed to Public Service What's wrong with the GDP?

Explanation / Answer

The GDP is not necessarily a good measure of economic well being. It only counts the market value of goods and services produced in the economy, but it does not include things like transactions that do not occur in the normal market. For instance, a wife taking care of children and cleaning house increases economic well being, but is not reflected in GDP. Levels of pollution which often coincide with high gdp growth (such as in china or india) do not necessarily reflect economic well being and are not included in the calculation of GDP.