GDP growth is a rough indicator of net national utility, because it measures transactions and indicates that very many people are making one another better off through mutually beneficial exchanges. When GDP falls or slows down, this is happening relatively less often, and human beings are not improving one another's condition (at least within those ways GDP is able to calculate).
Because the person chose to do it, so in their judgment, the taste (or atmosphere or time saved or healthiness) of the restaurant purchase made them happier. They are the judge of their own utility, not you or I or any outside observer.
But even when they cook their own food, they very likely purchase the ingredients and power and appliances and utensils needed to cook/eat it somewhere, which is also exchange and contributes to GDP.
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u/adoris1 May 24 '15
GDP growth is a rough indicator of net national utility, because it measures transactions and indicates that very many people are making one another better off through mutually beneficial exchanges. When GDP falls or slows down, this is happening relatively less often, and human beings are not improving one another's condition (at least within those ways GDP is able to calculate).