Improving on GDP...?

In the lectures Rob gave this week, you will have learnt a little bit about GDP - the market value of all the recently produced final goods and services in the economy.

Now of course, it's far from perfect as a measure - not least, how do you add up all the outputs of things that are hard to add up? Can you account for what are arguably negative contributions such as nuclear bombs and pollution?

Of course, many have tried. One of the articles referred to on the question sheet for classes for weeks 3-4 encourages you to have a go, and so you could get some tips and pointers from the comments there.

But how many judgement calls will you need to make in forming a new measure? And will it really be any good? Should it actually replace GDP, since at the end of the day GDP isn't designed to measure welfare...?

All this and more you can discuss in your classes these next couple of weeks...