The Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW) was introduced in 1972 by Yale economists William Nordhaus and James Tobin introduced their Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW) as an alternative to crude GDP. MEW takes national output as a starting point, but adjusts it to include an assessment of the value of leisure time and the amount of unpaid work in an economy, hence increasing the welfare value of GDP. The value of the environment damage caused by industrial production and consumption, which reduced the welfare value of GDP, is also included. MEW can be seen as the forerunner of later attempts to create a sophisticated index of sustainable development. It's the predecessor of ISEW and the GPI.