File:Largest-Economy.jpg

Measured in traditional/orthodox economic terms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_development

GDP - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product

GNP - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_product

GNI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_income

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Alternatives to the Dominion of GNP/GDP

In 1937 in the US, Professor Simon Kuznets of the National Bureau of Economic Research, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in economics, was asked by Congress, under pressure from the hardship of the Great Depression and its challenge to the system of capitalism itself, to develop a data set to assess the state of the national economy. In 1937, Kuznets presented a vast volume of data on income to Congress. It became the Gross National Product (GNP).

> (Via OtherWords) With remarkable foresight and humility, Kuznets warned that his newly minted GNP shouldn't be used as an instrument of social policy. It could never adequately measure the things we value, he said, such as housework or caring for elderly parents. Nor, he warned, could the GNP distinguish between the growth of good and bad jobs. The data would be the same if workers earned their pay from employers who endangered their lives or guarded their health and safety. "Goals for more growth should be more growth of what and for what," Kuznets said.

>Alas, Kuznets' warnings on the GNP — later renamed the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — went unheeded. Instead, the GDP became the barometer of health not only for the U.S. economy, but for the entire global economy.

>More than 70 years later, the desirability of GDP growth is so entrenched in our national and international discourse that it's hard to imagine it any other way. The revered indicator's expansion or contraction can swing national elections. Conversely, talk of GDP declines can drive a country to war.

Read More:

• Investopedia/Limitations of GDP and Alternative Measures

• NY Times/Alternatives to the GDP

• A Young Academic Looks at GDP/GNP/GNI and Limitations of Each

Genuine Progress Indicator -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_progress_indicator

• A Better Indicator of Genuine Progress

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