Mis-measuring Our Lives Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up

The report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress

Translated by I. Kushnareva; scientific editor of the translation T. Drobyshevskaya. Moscow: Gaidar Institute Press, 2015. 216 p.

ISBN 978-5-93255-427-2

In February 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy approached Nobel laureates in economics Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, as well as the eminent French economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi, with a proposal to create a commission of leading economists to study the question of whether GDP is a reliable indicator of economic and social progress.

This book is the result of the work of that commission. The authors offer a comprehensive examination of the shortcomings of GDP as an indicator of societal well-being, drawing attention to, for example, the fact that GDP does not take into account economic inequality or the consequences of economic decisions on the environment. In place of GDP, the authors propose a range of concepts, from sustainable indicators of economic well-being to measures of savings and wealth to “green GDP.” At a time when governments around the world face unprecedented global financial and environmental challenges, this book can serve as a guide to measuring what really matters.