Sarkozy Unveils New Plan to Measure Economic Growth

EurActiv (9/15) – Speaking at the launch of a report coordinated by Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz on new ways of charting economic performance, Sarkozy said he would ask France's statistics office INSEE to take on board the recommendations…GDP, the standard gauge of economic performance, measures a country's total output of goods and services in market prices.  It has been criticised as an overly narrow indicator that ignores wider factors including the health of a country's population or the environmental costs of activities like mining and energy production…No mention was made of a plan by the European Commission to launch a new indicator to complement GDP. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development welcomed the report.