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Comment by derriz | Hacker News Reader

People have been about GDP as a measure of economic progress for decades.

Despite its well known flaws, GDP has some great features - it's relatively easy to measure, has more-or-less a standard agreed and universal method of measurement and it is quantitative.

As a result, GDP is widely measured and provides a basis for comparison across history and geography.

Many proposed alternatives for GDP (as a measure of economic progress) do not have these features. Nor does the proposal in the linked to article. And so I think (like previous proposals) it's doomed to failure.

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it's relatively easy to measure, has more-or-less a standard agreed and universal method of measurement and it is quantitative.

These are great features, but interestingly absent from this list is whether GDP is accurate and precise as a measure of economic progress.

And whether economic progress is a good proxy for societal progress

Changes in GDP can be used a proxy for economic progress. GDP itself is a measure of economic activity. The underlying assumption is that the overall structure of the economy does not change much from one year to the next. Thus, while an increase in GDP is usually analogous to an increase in overall economic well being, one must keep in mind that GDP is NOT a measure economic progress, wealth, income, happiness, well-being, etc.

> GDP has some great features - it's relatively easy to measure, has more-or-less a standard agreed and universal method of measurement and it is quantitative.

None of these great features indicate that a larger GDP is in any way desirable.

I don't think anyone argues against measuring GDP. The problem is when people implicitly assume a larger GDP is better.

> it's relatively easy to measure, has more-or-less a standard agreed and universal method of measurement and it is quantitative.

Our tools have improved so much since we started measuring GDP. Maybe we should raise the bar on metrics: we're bound to find ones that are not-terribly-difficult-to-measure in 2020.

GDP measurement is ok. What is problem is targeting is as main and only mesaurement of success of economies.

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