How Much Less is More?

This study explored the novel concept of GDP efficiency in the context of sustainable development to investigate its utility and soundness. It is grounded in a critical perspective towards GDP as an indicator of progress and policy goal, especially the notion that GDP should grow indefinitely. With planet earth representing a limited, closed system, infinite growth presents a contradiction that threatens to disrupt the earth system and thus human habitation on the planet. Furthermore, capitalist economic activity and growth actively contribute to climate change, which threatens to exacerbate the problem of environmental degradation. Lastly, most developing countries have limited resources and thus benefit from more efficient policies to increase their citizens’ welfare and opportunities. A twofold mixed method design was employed to answer the research question, ‘Which policies contribute to GDP efficient sustainable development?’. The large N quantitative section created a composite index of GDP efficient development in the dimensions of human welfare and sustainability. Sustainable development indicator data were divided by GDP per capita and their averages taken to gauge a country’s development levels and relate them to its GDP. Subsequently, for each dimension, the most efficient developing and developed country was selected for further qualitative analysis, yielding a cohort of Belarus, Malawi, Bulgaria, and Burundi. Qualitative data for each indicator was analyzed to identify policies explaining the country’s score and identify commonalities across these most efficient cases. The findings showed that GDP per capita was the primary determinant of a county’s index ranking as it has a higher and variance than the utilized sustainable development indicators. A country can have very low development levels but a GDP per capita that is disproportionately smaller, resulting in high GDP efficiency. The states with the lowest GDP per capita globally emerged as the overall leaders in all dimensions. The qualitative results showed public healthcare and education with advanced specialization to be most efficient in generating human welfare, as well as some corrective state intervention against inequality. For sustainability, the results were less coherent, with low CO2 emissions and material footprint in addition to some conservation efforts emerging as important. Further research into this might adapt the methodology to reduce the influence of GDP, control for external financial influences, and use more cases in the qualitative analysis.