Broad measures of economic progress

Although for many decades, it was customary to focus on GDP and other measures of national income, there has been growing interest in developing broad measures of economic well-being. National and international approaches include the Beyond GDP programme developed by the European Union, the Better Lives Compendium of Indicators developed by the OECD, as well as many alternative metrics of wellbeing or happiness. One of the earliest attempts to develop such an index at national level was Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index and there are a now a number of similar projects ongoing around the world, including a project to develop for the UK an assessment of national well-being, commissioned by the Prime Minister David Cameron and led by the Office for National Statistics.

Historically, the impetus for this work can be found in economic arguments that stress GDP is not a good measure of human wellbeing or welfare and concerns from environmentalists and others about the fact that environmental costs were typically not properly reflected in national income accounts. In 2011, there is a converging recognition that a mix of objective and subjective indicators are helpful in understanding the extent to which societies are evolving in ways that are desirable. Typically, there is a growing recognition that multiple dimensions are important, that the creation of a single number indexation may be less valuable than the development of a dashboard of indicators, that subjective wellbeing (life satisfaction) and domain satisfactions may also be valuable and that fairness in economic activity is of importance to many in society.

Beyond GDP

In 2007, the European Commission, the European Parliament, Club of Rome, OECD and WWF hosted a conference titled "Beyond GDP". The consensus was to widen measures of economic growth and come up with measures that can inform policy making.[1][2] The conference was attended by over 650 policy makers, experts and social activists. Spurred by its success the European Union released a communication titled GDP and beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world[3] that identified five actions to improve the indicators of progress in ways that make it more responsive to the concerns of its citizens:

Following this communication and its adoption by the European Parliament in June 2008, many European governments and policy makers have started work on developing new measures of economic development.[4]

In August 2013, the European Commission published the Staff Working Document on "Progress on 'GDP and beyond' actions" , in which reviews what had been achieved on the five steps identified in the communication GDP and beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world. Some of the most significant actions taken include:

In addition, the European Commission provides a list of different indicators that can be categorised into five categories :

Measuring national well-being in the UK

In 2010 the Measuring National Well-being programme was launched in the UK. It is led by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and its aim is to develop accepted and trusted measures of the well-being of the nation.

Following a national debate in 2011 asking “what matters” to the general public, the programme has published a series of releases on experimental methodology such as the value of the non-market production of households collected in the Household Satellite Accounts and ad-hoc analysis like the Commuting and Personal Well-being release. It has also established a series of periodic publications. For example, the Human Capital estimates and the Life in the UK report are published annually.

The Life in the UK report was first published in November 2012 and included the National Well-being Wheel of measures, which is being updated twice a year, with the May 2014 update being the latest. The wheel includes headline indicators in areas such as health, relationships, job satisfaction, economic security, education, environmental conditions and measures of 'personal well-being' (individuals' assessment of their own well-being).

A Summary of National Well-being Measures from March 2014
National Well-being Wheel of measures

The programme will continue developing and improving the measurement of the well-being of the citizens in the United Kingdom in order to report on the findings to inform both public debate and policy-making.

World Bank

The World Bank suggests the usage of Human Development Index (HDI) and the Gross National Happiness Index (NHI). The HDI is a composite index of

  1. life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity,
  2. knowledge and education as measured by the adult literacy rate and functions of school enrollment rate and
  3. standard of living measured as a logarithmic function of GDP, adjusted to purchasing power parity.

The NHI focuses on the spiritual and material development of human beings by focussing on the four pillars of sustainable development, preservation of cultural values, conservation of natural resources and establishment of good governance. The bank also notes suggestions made by President Nicholas Sarkozy for the modification of the definition of GDP that stops the social and cultural damage that the current definitions are leading to.[5] The Bank also suggests Adjusted Net Savings as an alternative to GDP.[6]

Suggested measures

Some other measures that have been suggested as a replacement of GDP are Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) as suggested by Friends of the Earth, Environmentally Sustainable National Income (eSNI) by Dr. Hueting,

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Economic growth measures should be widened-EU, groups". Reuters. 2007. Retrieved 2012-02-26.
  2. ↑ Juergen Mohr (February 2011). From an Affluent Society to a Happy Society: Vital Signs Promising a Change and the Impacts on Industries. Diplomica Verlag. p. 35. ISBN 978-3-8428-5578-6. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  3. 1 2 "GDP and beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world". European Union. 2009. Retrieved 2012-02-26.
  4. ↑ "Background and history of the Beyond GDP Initiative" (PDF). BeyondGDP. Retrieved 2012-02-26.
  5. ↑ World Bank (25 May 2010). Innovation policy: a guide for developing countries. World Bank Publications. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-8213-8269-1. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  6. ↑ "Adjusted Net Saving". The World Bank. Retrieved 2012-02-26.

External links

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