Local Wellbeing: Is GDP a Good Measure of Wellbeing at the Local Level?
There has been a healthy debate in recent years about how useful GDP—the central measure that economists use to gauge the performance of an economy —is as an indicator of wider standards of living. At the national level, this discussion is perhaps less interesting than it first appears—since GDP per head and living standards track each other closely—but at the local level, it is much more contentious.