‘Beyond GDP’ Requires Replacement, Not Just Additional Metrics

Political decision-making remains dominated by GDP, often at the expense of social and environmental concerns. Indicator dashboards have so far had limited impact on core policy decisions in this regard. This article argues that only replacing GDP with a comprehensive aggregate metric can overcome its dominance. To illustrate which alternative is most likely to succeed, the concept of “perception distance” (or similarity) to GDP is introduced, formalized and compared across key options. Furthermore, it is argued that replacing GDP with a superior aggregate metric will enhance the effectiveness of the additive approach as the new headline metric reduces tension with disaggregate domain indicators for wellbeing, inequality and sustainability.