Write down some of the limitations of gdp as an index of welfare of a ...
GDP has been one of the most popular, frequent and consistent method for measuring growth. Besides being easy to measure, it is also measured universally, thus facilitating temporal and spatial comparisons.
However, it suffers from certain limitations :
* Doesn't value intangibles like leisure, quality of life which go beyond economic growth
* Doesn't measure the quality and distributional aspects of growth. For e.g if the growth has been inclusive, sustainable etc.
* Doesn't taken into account the destruction caused to ecology
* Doesn't indicate gender disparities
* Doesn't reflect on how the growth has taken place. For e.g even a war can increase the GDP of a country
* Doesn't include social services [for e.g. Charitable work], household services[for e.g. work done by women at home], non-monetized economy[for e.g Barter economy] or Black Money
However, GDP shouldn't be discarded totally, but should be supplemented by other Development indicators such as UN's Human Development Index, Human Poverty Index, Gross National Happiness etc for better understanding welfare of a country.