Famous quotes

• Robert Kennedy: "GDP does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play"
  Robert Kennedy, 1968
  > Watch video (2:12 min.)
• Joseph Stiglitz: "GDP tells you nothing about sustainability"
  Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz proposes alternatives to Gross Domestic Product as a measurement of national economic success, 2008 (publ. 2010)
  > Watch video (8:06 min.)
• Amartya Sen: "HDI is people-centered … GDP is commodity-centered"
  Nobel-Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in an interview regarding the 20th anniversary of the Human Development Index, 2010
  > Download interview (pdf, 66 KB)
• David Cameron: "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB - general wellbeing"
  British Prime Minister David Cameron at the Google Zeitgeist Europe conference in May 2006
  > Read article from BBC (html)
• José Barroso: "The appropriate choice of indicators is key to boost our understanding of the complexity of our diverse societies within the European Union, to better communicate on it, and to better respond to new policy needs as for example with the "GDP and beyond" initiative to include measurement of well being."
  José Barroso, President of the European Commission, in his opening speech at the Eurostat Conference "Statistics for policy making: Europe 2020" on 10 March 2011 in Brussels.
  > Download speech (pdf, 47 KB)
• Pier Carlo Padoan: "Much of the statistics and indicators that we routinely produce are not looking at what truly matters to people"
  Pier Carlo Padoan, Deputy Secretary-General and Chief Economist, OECD in speech during the Eurostat Conference on "Statistics for policy making: Europe 2020" on 10 March 2011 in Brussels
  > Download speech (pdf, 103 KB)
• Nicolas Sarkozy: "Nothing is more destructive than the gap between people's perceptions of their own day-to-day economic well-being and what politicians and statisticians are telling them about the economy"
  French president Nicolas Sarkozy at the unveiling of the Stiglitz Report in Paris on 15 September 2009
  > Read article from Newsweek (html)
• Angela Merkel: "We must learn new ways to define the concept of growth for the 21 century"
  German Chancellor Angela Merkel at EU economic summit on 11 February 2010
  > Read article from taz.die tageszeitung (html, in German)
• Olli Rehn: "These initiatives ['GDP and Beyond' and the so-called "Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report"], both published in autumn 2009, have challenged official statisticians to develop new indicators that better describe our environmental challenges, the quality of life of households and the distributional aspects of income."
  Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn summing up the conclusions of the Eurostat Conference on "Statistics for policy making: Europe 2020" on 11 March 2011 in Brussels
  > Download speech (pdf, 18 KB)
• Janez Potočnik: "We need to better measure our natural capital, its eco-system services, in physical terms and in monetary terms"
  Potočnik, European Commissioner for Environment, in speech during the Eurostat Conference on "Statistics for policy making: Europe 2020" on 10 March 2011 in Brussels
  > Download speech (pdf, 67 KB)
• Hazel Henderson: "GDP has outlived its usefulness"
  Hazel Henderson in the article “What's Wrong with Market Economics and GDP?”, 2008
  > Download article (html)
• Stavros Dimas: "GDP was not intended to be a measure of wellbeing"
  Stavros Dimas, former European Commissioner for Environment. Press conference in connection with the presentation of the EU Roadmap on 11 September 2009
  > Watch video (3:03 min.)
• European Commission: "It is not only the quantity of growth that is important, but its quality"
  European Commission, 2007
  > Watch video (3:19 min.)
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