United Kingdom Follows Italy To Count Sex, Drug Use in GDP

Following Italy, the United Kingdom is planning on counting illegal drugs and prostitution in its Gross Domestic Product calculations.

Revenue generating activity used to determine EU budgets

Before you crack the countless “mafia” and “madam” economy jokes that have already been told ad nauseam, there is a logical reason for such recording.  A common standard is required for calculating each countries contribution to the EU budget.  Certain countries have legalized to various levels drugs and prostitution.  The Netherlands, for instance, includes this in their budgets because this is a revenue generating activity for the country.

“As economies develop and evolve, so do the statistics we use to measure them,” Joe Grice,...