* Official GDP estimates may not take into account the black market, where the money spent is not registered, and non-monetary economy, where there is no money involved at all, " where inaccurate or abnormally low GDP figures. For example, in countries with large companies transactions occurring informally portions of the local economy are not easy to save. Bartering is perhaps more important than the use of money, even with the extension of services (I helped you build your house ten years ago, so now you help me).
* This mainstream economic analysis does not take into account external factors such as the environment, subsistence production and domestic work. The current account oil spills and war as contributors to economic growth, while raising children and housekeeping are considered worthless. The work of the New Zealand economist Marilyn Waring, has shown that if a concerted effort to factor in the unpaid work were made, then it should partially undo the injustices of the outstanding (and some cases, the slave) labour and also provide the policy of transparency and accountability necessary to democracy. Also, when GDP is used as a measure of success over time, the amount of household work was done 50 years ago compared to today is much greater. Thus, the comparison of GDP in time may not take into account the changes in society and lifestyle.

* It ignores volunteer, unpaid work. For example, Linux contributes nothing to GDP, but he believed that it would have cost more than one billion dollars for a commercial company to develop. Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia content, is another good example.
* Very often, the various calculations of GDP are confused with each other. For comparisons transactions they must regard to whether it is calculated by purchasing power parity (PPP) method or the method of the current exchange rate. Using the method to compare the standard of living is problematic because it does not always reflect the true wealth of citizens, ie. How they are able to purchase at the local level compared to their income (see Penn effect).
* Cross-border comparisons of GDP may be inaccurate because they do not take into account local differences in the quality of goods, even when adjusted for purchasing power parity. Such an adjustment of an exchange rate is controversial because of the difficulty of finding comparable baskets of goods to compare the purchasing power between countries. For example, people living in country A may consume the same number of apples produced locally and in country B, but apples in country A is a variety tastier. This difference in material well-being does not appear in the statistics of GDP. This is particularly true for goods that are not traded globally, such as housing.

* GDP heads work, which produces no net change or resulting from the payment of damages. For example, rebuilding after a natural disaster or war may produce a considerable amount of economic activity and thus increase the GDP, but it would have been much better if the accident had never occurred in the first place. The economic value of health care is another classic example, it may raise GDP if many people are sick and they receive expensive treatment, but this is not a desirable situation. Alternative economic measures such as the standard of living or income per capita discretionary better measure the value of human economic activity. See profitable growth.
* Quality of life-happiness-is determined by many things other than the physical goods and services. Even the alternative economic measures of standard of living and discretionary income do not take into account these factors.
* Cross border trade-distorting within companies and GDP is often to escape high taxation. An example is the German Ebay that eludes German tax of doing business in Switzerland, and the American companies that have established farms in the Republic of Ireland to "buy" their own products cheap for their continental plants (not including shipping costs) and selling them for profit through Ireland - thereby reducing their taxes and the increase in GDP of the Republic of Ireland.

* People can buy cheap and low durability of goods, again and again, or they can buy goods durability less often. It is possible that the dollar value of products sold in the first case is higher than in the second case, in this case, an increase in the GDP is simply the result of greater inefficiency and waste. (This is not always the case, the assets are often more difficult to produce than fragile goods, and consumers have an incentive to find the cheapest in the long run. With goods that are undergoing rapid change, such as fashion or in the high-tech, short-lived can increase customer satisfaction by enabling them to newer products.)