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Best Single Measure Of The Economic Well-Being Of A Society

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According to the economics textbook used in the classroom, gross domestic product (GDP) can be defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. There are four major components of gross domestic product including consumption, investment, government purchases, and net exports. Each of these components plays a major roles when dealing with GDP and when attempting to understand the role of the gross domestic product when measuring a nation’s income. It has been said that when measuring a nation’s income GDP per capita seems to be the best available objective measure. The textbook states “GDP was called the best single measure of the economic well-being of a society.”(496). There are …show more content…

There are many reasons that this is considered to be a cause for concern. For example many societies consider leisure time as the most important time because they have the ability to unwind and do things that they need to get done in regards to their personal life. That’s why leisure activity is considered very important to most people. In the text book there is an example of what could possibly happen if leisure time was taken away and how that might increase the GDP because there would be more production of goods and services, but it would be offset by the loss from reduced leisure in regards to production and consumption. This is one primary example of the importance of leisure time when attempting to measure the economic well-being of a society or a nation. If leisure is not considered then some of the fundamental reasons a nation might be considered having more well-being than another nation is …show more content…

This is important because there are many negative consequences that should be taken into consideration in regards to the environment. Some of the consequences that should be considered are the side effects of economic expansion such as pollution, lack of natural resources and it also does not account for the way that we gain and benefit from the environment. Some examples of economic benefits that we receive from the environment are lands we can sell, trees and plants that are put up for sale, use of environmental factors to build and produce other products among many other things that can also be included economically beneficial from environmental factors. Not only do the side effects have an impact on the environment such as pollution, they also have an impact on the economy because money that was used to destroy the environment such as building and factories is also being used in an attempt to repair the economy such as rebuilding reefs and investing in national parks. The overall quality of the environment is very important to the society’s well-being because without it there could be a large variety of possibly very severe

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