Britain, Italy include drugs and sex in GDP

[ChineseTiger1986]

The U.K.'s Office of National Statistics announced Thursday that paying for drugs and sex adds about £10 billion ($16.7 billion) a year to the economy. The British government is now including prostitution and narcotics sales in its official Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistic. That's the oft-cited measure of how much a country's economy grows or contracts.
Overall, illegal activities are still a small part of the U.K. economy -- a mere 0.7%, according to government estimates.

The reason for the change is to harmonize economic reporting across the European Union. Prostitution and some drugs are legal in the Netherlands, and the Dutch count those activities in official government statistics.

Since prostitution and many narcotics are still illegal in the United Kingdom, the government is using a combination of police seizures and other data to estimate how much money these activities are adding to the economy.

Related: High-tech sex workers in Silicon Valley

Governments often use surveys to gather this information, but drug dealers are unlikely to answer those.

Italy made a similar announcement last week that it would begin measuring narcotics and sex work in its GDP, generating "mafia economy" jokes as the news reached social media.

But the Brits and Italians aren't the only ones who measure illegal business activity in their countries. Estonia, Austria, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and Norway do as well.

Even the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis measures prostitution as a part of Nevada's state GDP.

Drugs and prostitution add $16 billion a year to British economy - May. 29, 2014

 

[SrNair]

'Developed' nations

 

[liall]

we should leagilze prostitution and start taxing it & counting it in our GDP

 

[nangyale]

Such is the state of the once might empire.

 

[The SiLent crY]

'Developed' nations

Civilized nations

 

[Yeti]

Problem is that the money is not taxable and ends up in the hands of organised criminals but the proceeds of vices are used in UK such as houses, flash cars, Rolexes etc

 

[cirr]

These shameless countries，the US included，would go any length to inflate their GDP figures。

 

[Pangu]

So now the govts want to play pimp?

 

[Schutz]

Every country should do this as I would say that especially with drugs, 90% of the money will be going back into the economy. Your average guy who sells a bit of weed and powder etc is good for the economy, they go out buy new clothes, vehicles etc to stimulate the economy