It’s been described as one of the  most important numbers in economics . It’s also one of the   most controversial . For while gross domestic product is great at measuring the goods and services produced by a country, it does a pretty shoddy job of capturing the things that actually matter to most of us. After all, what good is a booming economy if very few people benefit from it? But while  most experts  agree that GDP has its limitations, nobody quite knows what to replace it with. If GDP is a poor assessment of the things that matter, what could be a more accurate measure? How can we determine which countries are not only thriving, but also managing to convert this economic growth into well-being for their citizens? A new way of measuring progress Researchers at the Boston Consulting Group  have found an alternative: the Sustainable Economic Development Assessment. The index tracks 160 countries across three elements: economics, sustaina...