While economists speak of GDP as a legitimate measure of the economy, a closer look tells us that it is biased toward consumer spending and fails to give a true measure of the value of capital.
There are a bunch of well-known conceptual issues with GDP:
- Leisure is not counted;
- Home production is not counted;
- Deferred maintenance is not counted;
- Government expenditures are assumed to be worth what they cost; *Non-monetary compensation is not counted.
I'm sure I missed a bunch of others, but I'm curious what stackers perceive as the biggest shortcoming of GDP as an economic metric.
Are there other metrics you prefer?
Development economists sometimes use the Human Development Index (HDI), which explicitly adds education and longevity to income in an effort to capture some other quality of life measures.