Whether or not the national accounts were ‘one of the great inventions’ of the past century (Landefeld, 2000), they have certainly been one of the most influential. They are the lens through which we have viewed economic progress, focused ultimately on the growth in real GDP. As a result, governments promising to deliver progress to their citizens have been evaluated by that metric, and made policy decisions in order to deliver it. This issue of E&S provides a timely overview of key critiques – some old and some new – of the national accounts.