Discounting GDP for Pollution, Waste Generation and Natural Resources Depletion: A Comparative Analysis of Selected High, Middle and Low Income Countries.

GDP represents the monetary value of all final goods and services produced and traded within the domestic territory of a country in a given period. It shows the size of the economy but it does not reflect the economic loss of natural resource depletion and the cost of undisposed waste generation in the process of production and consumption. This paper attempts to make a comparative analysis of discounted GDP to integrate the cost of pollution, waste generation and natural resources depletion across high-income, middle-income and low-income countries with the help of a general calculation methodology developed by Stjepanovic, Tomic and Skare (2017). The study uses secondary data compiled from the World Development Indicators (WDI) dataset for the years 2000 to 2020. A sample of 35 countries out of 193 member countries of the UN is further classified into high, middle and low-income groups. The analysis shows that there is a small gap between the discounted GDP and GDP in high-income countries than the middle and low-income countries. The results also provide inputs for further discussion and debates on green growth and environmental sustainability.