Bechtel (2018, 2019) linked gross domestic product (GDP) to the United Nation's Human Development Index (HDI). Bechtel, G. and Bechtel, T., 2020 then found that American GDP alone predicted HDI. These results induce the hypotheses that two transforms of GDP perfectly predict a new index of HDI-attenuated GDP (W) introduced here. These hypotheses are confirmed at the global level and for the United States and China, the world's two largest economies. These discoveries inform the debate on well-being and show that W can be computed from GDP without survey sampling, questionnaire interrogation, probabilistic inference, or significance testing. In view of trade-war and COVID-19 shocks to the global and national economies, international attention to GDP and human development is now compelling.

This article generalizes Bechtel (2020a, 2020b). The results in these papers induce our hypotheses that GDP predicts income and survival. These hypotheses are confirmed at the global level and we invite the G20 to confirm them at the national level as well. Our regressions show that global life expectancy and global gross income per capata can be predicted from GDP alone without survey sampling, questionnaire interrogation, probabilistic inference, or significance testing. In view of trade-war and COVID-19 shocks to the world economy, international attention to GDP's life-saving effects is now compelling.

Bechtel (2018, 2019) linked gross domestic product (GDP) to the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI).  These results at the national level, and subsequent results at the global level (Bechtel, G. and Bechtel, T., 2020), induce our hypothesis that a transform of American GDP predicts global HDI.  This hypothesis is confirmed by two distinct bilinear regressions in which global HDI is predicted by American GDP alone.  These empirical findings contribute to the socioeconomic and philosophical debate on the nature of well-being.  They also show that HDI computation can be carried out from American GDP without survey sampling, questionnaire interrogation, probabilistic inference, significance testing, or even HDI data.  In view of trade-war and covid-19 shocks to all national economies, international attention to American GDP is now compelling.

This article extends results reported by Bechtel, G. and Bechtel, T. (2021). These previous findings induce the hypothesis confirmed here; namely, that gross domestic product GDP nearly perfectly predicts survival in the world’s entire population. The fractional polynomial regressions here are run over the pre-pandemic period 1991–2016. During the subsequent pandemic, the American Center for Disease Control reported that life expectancy at birth in the USA dropped one year during the first six months of 2020, the largest drop since World War 11. The drops in African and Hispanic life expectancy at birth during this period were 2.7 and 1.9 years (Aljazeera; Democracy Now, February 18, 2021). The USA is the worst covid-19-effected population. It is now imperative to confirm that life expectancy at birth is well predicted from GDP in all nations over 1991–2018. This pre-pandemic control for each nation will accurately calibrate it’s subsequent yearly survival drops due to Covid-19. This is especially important in light of the trade war between the United States and China, which has increased the need for accurate measurement of the human effects of this war.