How Covid-19 damaged the idea of growth

For decades more thoughtful economists have warned that GDP growth is a grossly inadequate measure of progress, and we’d be better off making wellbeing our priority instead. Alternative measures of progress are plentiful, though none of them have dethroned GDP as the one metric to rule them all.

However, the coronavirus crisis may have dealt GDP a significant blow – not just in reducing growth, but in putting GDP itself in its place.

When the government was trying to make up its mind about lockd...