If Hurricane Sandy, which struck a year ago today, was technically "good" for the country, we need a better way to measure national progress.

CHILDS: So far, we've talked about how economists calculate GDP and how sometimes they make changes to that methodology, incremental changes to capture an evolving economy.

How should we measure changes in an economy's standard of living, or compare living standards across countries? Typically, economists use GDP per capita as a proxy for a country's standard of ...

Learn how economists and statisticians track economic growth and why GDP might not be the best measurement of real economic gains.

The BEA is the government agency responsible for compiling U.S. GDP figures, and it is always looking for better ways to measure. Every few years it tweaks its methodology.

The GDP concept has historically been used to measure human well-being and progress. This analytical purview is now coming into question. The GDP concept limits analysis to the economic factor and ...