Professor Pete Klenow presents:
Beyond GDP
GDP is a popular but incomplete measure of human welfare. How does taking into account leisure time, inequality, and mortality alter the portrait of living standards? For example, is welfare currently higher in the U.S. or France? Income and consumption are higher in the U.S., but in France people enjoy more leisure, live longer, and face less inequality. For another example, take income growth in the U.S. and China. In both countries inequality is rising and leisure is falling. Do these trends mean welfare is rising more slowly than income, or even declining?