GDP and alternative measures of socio-economic development

Gross Domestic Product and more broadly System of National Accounts were invented in the beginning of XX century to answer two questions. How much resources could be put directly to the military without the collapse of the economy? And, how deep is the recession? The first question was addressed by Russian Czar commission in the end of World War I. Simon Kuznets was working on the second question during The Great Depression. He created the first National Accounts for the United States in the late 1930's and "Gross Domestic Product" entered the language.

For decades, GDP was the measure of all things.  But as the business landscape reinvents itself, demographics shift, inequality expands, climate change gets worse and technology continues to advance at breakneck speed, GDP is struggling to stay relevant. In order to keep up with the changes brought on by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, many are arguing that we need to find a new measure to assess the health of our economies and – more importantly – the people living in them. - World Economic Forum

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) five alternative indicators to measure progress in socio-economic development: Good Jobs, Wellbeing, Environment, Fairness, Health. 

This dashboard allows you to compare GDP and alternative measures of socio-economic development as well as Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, which is the aggregated measure of Health, Education, Economy and Inequality performance.