This evidence has led many of these authors (e.g. Oswald, 1997; Stiglitz etc Al. 2010) to question why GDP growth maximization should enjoy its apparent status as the preeminent goal of economic policy. These critiques of the limits of GDP as both measure and goal of economic policy are uncontroversial and supported by many governments. They are made explicit in the deliberate choice that makes 'economic growth' only a partial component of one of the seventeen UN Sustainable Development 1/2