Gross domestic product (GDP) is a widely used measure of the value of all goods and services produced in an economy. In 2017, the Indigo Prize was offered for essays proposing alternative ways to measure economic progress in the twenty-first century. Third place was won by Alice Lassman, then a first-year geography student at the University of Durham. In this article, she explains her alternative measure and considers the geographical implications of her approach.
Finding a comparative measure of economic activity is challenging. Each country follows unique development routes over varying timescales, with different economic specialisations and rates of social development. Any single measure of output at a particular time may mask true economic potential. Despite this, GDP (see Box 1) is one of the main indicators used:
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