Increasing GDP is associated with reduced sickness and improved survival, likely related to improvements in education, nutrition, public health, and health care [11], [12], [13], [14].
That will boost the economy, increasing GDP, increasing tax revenue".
Increasing happiness, officials now insist, is more important than increasing GDP.
And institutions such as the World Bank, for example, who are very focused on economic development should think beyond that; so not just thinking about increasing GDP or increasing incomes but thinking about, for what?
Raising female labour participation to the level of men's could add 8m people to Japan's shrinking workforce, potentially increasing GDP by as much as 15%, according to Goldman Sachs, an investment bank.
Unfortunately when you equate the measurement of social welfare with measuring financial return, you end up with the current, ransacked world where an emphasis on increasing GDP and profits is taken to be the only necessary requirement for a healthy society.
Qassim says: "UAE is moving in the right direction and it has diversified its economy – creating jobs, reducing inflation and increasing GDP – whilst some of our neighbouring countries are in a turmoil, UAE continues to reform its institutions and health, education and legislative systems so it can be one of the top governments of the world".
Adding up the contributions made by illegal activities could have benefits – increasing GDP has the effect of reducing the public deficit as a ratio of output, so sex workers and drug dealers may help member states to drop below the EU debt ceiling of 3% of output.
Yet, notes Polak, "So much development work is focused on macroeconomics and increasing GDP per capita".
OECD countries, however, have a decreasing severance pay generosity with increasing GDP per capita.
Panel A considers tax changes motivated by external bodies and those aimed at increasing GDP in the long-run.
