1. What organization calculates the GDP?
2. How do they do it? What kind of information is involved?
3. Why are security measures protecting GDP data so strict?
4. Why is GDP seen as a problematic way to measure a sustainable economy?
5. Does the conventional view of the GDP equate GDP growth to how well the country and its citizens are doing? Why do many see that as misleading?
6. What would Adam Smith think about a measurement that indicates that the wealth of the nation is growing when other measurements show that most people are getting poorer?
7. Simon Kuznets, who invented many of the indicators that now include the GDP, was concerned from the start that the GDP might be mistaken for what? _______________
8. How would GDP be a better measurement if it were calculated on the median income rather than on the average income?
9. How is the GDP compared to the dashboard on an automobile?
10) What are some of the metrics being proposed for a better "dashboard?"
11) What statistical bias likely exists in the GDP measurement concerning public-sector benefits (i.e. the common good)?
12) What distinction does the article make between people's feelings of satisfaction in making money versus enjoyment or happiness? What policy options does that difference imply for government economic policy and the measurement of national progress?