“Overall GDP is the best way to measure social and economic well-being.” To what extent do you agree? (20)

Gross domestic product is the total value of all finished goods and services produced by a country in a single year and is expressed in amount per head. As an aggregate measure of the total economic production of a country, GDP represents the market value of all goods produced by the country including personal consumption, government services and foreign trade balance - it therefore provides a comprehensive scorecard of the country’s economic health. It demonstrates large scale changes and trends of the economic activity of a country which can help governments and densely populated industries asses their performance. While gross domestic product is considered to be the broadest indicator of economic output and growth is has many weaknesses including: a lack of recognition for social well-being, lack of consideration for the quality of goods as well as hiding inequalities by not showing the distribution of wealth within a nation. Due to this, other development indicators that are more holistic and broad compared to GDP may be better to measure the social and economic well-being of a country, examples include: the human development index, purchasing power parity, individual socio-economic measurements and gross national happiness.