* GDP does not measure the sustainability of growth. A country may achieve a high GDP temporarily by the over-exploitation of natural resources or by misallocating investment. For example, large deposits of phosphates has given the people of Nauru, one of the highest per capita incomes on earth, but since 1989, their standard of living has declined sharply as the supply has run out. Rich in oil States can sustain without industrialization high GDP, but this high rate would no longer be viable if the oil runs out. The economies are experiencing a bubble economy, as a real estate bubble or stock bubble, or a low rate of private savings tend to start to grow faster due to higher consumption, mortgaging their future for current growth. Economic growth at the expense of environmental degradation may actually very expensive to clean, GDP takes no account of this.

* As a measure of actual sales prices, the GDP does not capture the economic surplus between the price paid and the value received subjective, and may therefore underestimate the usefulness aggregate.

* Annual growth in real GDP is adjusted using the "GDP deflator", which tends to underestimate the objective differences in the quality of manufacturing output over time. (The deflator is explicitly based on the subjective experience when measuring things like the consumer benefits received from the improvements in computing power since the early 1980s). Therefore, the GDP figure may underestimate the degree of sophistication of the technology and quality level are increasingly the real standard of living.

* GDP ignores the disparity in income between rich and poor into account. See income inequality parameters for the consideration of a variety of economic measures.

* GDP is often used incorrectly and (often unscientific and unrealistic) comparisons where the national net worth (or of national wealth) would be more correct to point of reference. For example, "X person could buy the country Y, because his wealth is greater than the GDP of this country." Net national is often equal to the combined GDP for several years.

The limits of GDP (or GNP, a slightly different concept) can be summed up in two words of criticism. Robert Kennedy said

The gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It has special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. GNP includes destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads ... It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

The second criticism, Simon Kuznets the inventor of GDP, in his first report to the United States Congress in 1934, said

... The well-being of a nation barely may be inferred from a measurement of national income ...

Kuznets stated in 1962

Distinctions must be borne in mind between the quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long term. Objectives for more growth, more growth should specify what and why.

Some economists have attempted to create a replacement for GDP called the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which attempts to answer many of these criticisms. Many nations calculate a national wealth, the sum of all goods of a nation, but this time does not take into account future obligations such as environmental degradation, asset bubbles, and debt. Other countries such as Bhutan have advocated that the gross national happiness to a standard of living. (Bhutan claims to be the happiest nation in the world.)