ABSTRACT
There has been an elusive quest to determine how we can go beyond gross domestic product (GDP) to attain a true indicator of social well-being. The well-known report by Stiglitz et al. (2009) suggested that GDP faces three challenges: conventional problems, quality of life aspects and sustainability issues. While some have argued that GDP is problematic on many fronts, it does have its uses. It is intended to measure the value added in an economy within a period and thus to act as a proxy for the magnitude of economic activity. Here, it is important to remember that one of the fathers of GDP, Simon Kuznets, originally intended to design an index that represents welfare rather than the value added in an economy (Coyle 2015).
