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About Sonja Hennen

Sonja Hennen is an International Economics graduate at HWR Berlin, and wrote her thesis on concepts of justice in the degrowth debate. She works for an NGO dedicated to facilitating a more sustainable food system and enhancing climate justice. 

Money • 26.03.2021

The case for abandoning GDP – An intersectional perspective Pt. 2

Case for abadoning pt 2

By: Sonja Hennen

GDP is a flawed guide to prosperity. What else should we measure if we want to do better? “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income”. Those were the words of Simon Kuznets, who developed the first national income accounts in the United States. And yet, we look back on decades of appropriating GDP as a measure of social welfare and progress. With t...

Work • 03.02.2021

The case for abandoning GDP - an intersectional perspective Pt. 1

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By: Sonja Hennen

As the current default indicator for economic and social ‘progress’, GDP is the most broadly established measure of a country’s economic performance relative to that of other countries. Conceived as a tool to measure economic quantity, GDP is widely used to assess economic quality, although it ignores a range of vital economic activities, most notably care work. On top of that, the race for GD...