Report by the commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress

As GDP is a measure of market capacity and not economic well-being, this report has been commissioned to more accurately understand the social progress indicators of any given state. Gross domestic product (GDP) is the most widely used measure of economic activity. There are international standards for its calculation, and much thought has gone into its statistical and conceptual bases. But GDP mainly measures market production, though it has often been treated as if it were a measure of economic well-being. Conflating the two can lead to misleading indications about how well-off people are and entail the wrong policy decisions. One reason why money measures of economic performance and living standards have…