GDP Is Misleading Measure of Wealth, Says Top Economist

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100104092500.htm

ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2010) — The most commonly used measure of overall economic output is misleading and inaccurate, according to one of the world's leading economists.

Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, from The University of Manchester, says Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ignores the value of natural ecosystems -- an essential component of wealth.

Aquifers, ocean fisheries, tropical forests, estuaries and the atmosphere, should but are not used to estimate nations' wealth, he wrote in a new paper published this month.

Professor Dasgupta also criticises the Human Development Index (HDI) -- used by the United Nations to say if a country is developed, developing, or underdeveloped for -- the same reason.

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"If economists take into account natural capital, then it is clear that some of the world's poorest people are subsidising the incomes of importer rich countries."

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