Property investment accounts for 8% of the gross domestic product, a large chunk of the world's No. 2 economy, estimates Standard Chartered economist Stephen Green.

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So much so, that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Affordable Care Act reduced the long-term fiscal gap by 2% of the gross domestic product over the next 75 years.

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Estimates of the direct and indirect costs of violence suggest that the costs of crime are roughly 12 to 14 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

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