Alternatives to GDP are more urgent than ever. Read MERGE’s last newsletter of 2026 below.
Competitiveness, among others, has anchored the European Commission’s political agenda for the 2024–2029 mandate. A priority already set before the Competitiveness Compass formalised it as a governing tool in early 2025. Yet the harder question “Competitiveness for what, and measured how?” remains unresolved. The MERGE project has been working on that gap.
This edition asks what it really means for Europe to be competitive and how we measure it. We move past the usual GDP debate to examine what a broader definition of competitiveness looks like, grounded in wellbeing, sustainability, and institutional resilience. A recent MERGE science-policy dialogue with EU institutions surfaces three key findings on measurement and inequality. We also look at new momentum at the global level, with the UN High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP putting forward a framework that reinforces much of what MERGE has been arguing.
