Wellbeing as an Alternative to GDP?

PDF (English)
Опубликован: giu 30, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/hapscpbs.38956
Iris Panagiota Efthymiou
Lecturer, University of Greenwich, UK; Researcher, Laboratory of Health Economics and Management, University of Piraeus, Greece.
Аннотация

Gross domestic product is the most commonly used measure of development, both in academia as well as wider society discourse. It describes the material production of a society within the course of a calendar year. While useful in informing policy and business decisions it is markedly limited by its one-dimensional nature. Well-being on the other hand rather than being the absence of illness is instead a long-term condition that allows an individual or group to flourish and perform well within society. Ensuring that public policy reflects this has been a central tent of modern economics post-1990 (Quick, 2020).  Today, governing authorities and economists are increasingly using tools such as 'happiness' upon which to base spending and policy decisions. The main question that arises is not whether GDP is a perfect indicator of a country's economic progress but whether it is the best approach to judge the overall prosperity and wellbeing of a country. In this paper we explore GDP and well-being, the risk that this valuable economic metric is under as well as GDP alternatives.

Article Details
  • Раздел
  • Articles
Лицензия Creative Commons

Это произведение доступно по лицензии Creative Commons «Attribution» («Атрибуция») 4.0 Всемирная.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Скачивания
Данные скачивания пока недоступны.
Библиографические ссылки
Agrawal, N., (2021, March 29). Cal State Students Keep GPAs up During Pandemic, But Troubling Equity Gaps Persist, LOS ANGELES TIMES. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-29/csu-covid-19-challenges-grades. (Accessed: 11/05/2022).
Anand, P., (2020, July 17). How can governments think beyond GDP? Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/07/17/how-can-governments-think-beyond-gdp/. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
Bank of England (2019, January 10). What is GDP? Available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-gdp. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
BBC News, (2021, November 11). What is GDP and how is it measured? Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-13200758. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
Boarini, R., Johansson, Å. and d'Ercole, M.M., (2006). Alternative measures of well-being. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers No. 33.
Costanza, R., Caniglia, E., Fioramonti, L., Kubiszewski, I., Lewis, H., Lovins, H., ... & Wilkinson, R. (2018). Toward a sustainable wellbeing economy. The Solutions Journal, 9(2), 1-5.
Davis, K., (2019, January 2). What Is Well-Being? Definition, Types, and Well-Being Skills. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/click-here-happiness/201901/what-is-well-being-definition-types-and-well-being-skills. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
Efthymiou-Egleton, I. P., Sidiropoulos, S., Kritas, D., Vozikis, A., Rapti, P., & Souliotis, K. (2020). AI transforming Healthcare Management during Covid-19 pandemic. HAPSc Policy Briefs Series, 1(1), 130-138.
Efthymiou, I.-P. (2017). Wellness: A New Word for Ancient Ideas. Xlibris UK (Random House) Author Solutions LLC. ISBN-10: 1543487300.
Elliott, S. J., Dixon, J., Bisung, E., & Kangmennaang, J. (2017). A GLOWING footprint: Developing an index of wellbeing for low to middle income countries. International Journal of Wellbeing, 7(2), 1- 27.
Fanning, A. L., & O'Neill, D. W. (2019). The Wellbeing–Consumption paradox: Happiness, health, income, and carbon emissions in growing versus non-growing economies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 212, 810-821.
Fox, J., (2012). The Economics of Well-Being. Available at: https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-economics-of-well-being. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
Hawkes, H., (2021, September 6). GDP alternatives: 8 ways of measuring economic health. Available at: https://intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au/economy/8-ways-of-measuring-economic-health. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
International Monetary Fund (2020, February 24). Gross Domestic Product: An Economy’s all. Available at: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/basics/gdp.htm. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
International Monetary Fund. (2023, December). What AI Means for Economics. Finance & Development, 60(4), 21-25.
Kapoor, A., and Debroy, B., (2019, October 04). GDP Is Not a Measure of Human Well-Being. Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/10/gdp-is-not-a-measure-of-human-well-being. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
Pettinger, T., (2021, November 18). Alternatives to GDP. Available at: https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/167255/economics/alternatives-to-gdp/ (Accessed: 13/05/2022).
Quick, A., (2020, October 28). Wellbeing and GDP: explained. Available at: https://bit.ly/3lcBXy4 (Accessed: 13/05/2022).
Ruggeri, K., Garcia-Garzon, E., Maguire, Á., Matz, S., & Huppert, F. A. (2020). Well-being is more than happiness and life satisfaction: a multidimensional analysis of 21 countries. Health and quality of life outcomes, 18(1), 1-16.
Sustainability for all, (n.d.). Alternatives to GDP for measuring well-being. Available at: https://www.activesustainability.com/sustainable-development/alternatives-to-gdp-for-measuring-well-being/?_adin=02021864894. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
Utrecht University, (n.d.). Better Wellbeing Index. Available at: https://www.uu.nl/en/research/better-well-being-index. (Assessed: 13/05/2022).
Vousinas, G.L., Simitsi, I., Livieri, G., Gkouva, G.C., & Efthymiou, I.P. (2022). Mapping the Road of the Ethical Dilemmas Behind Artificial Intelligence. Journal of Politics and Ethics in New Technologies and AI, 1(1), e31238.
Wallace, J., Ormston, H., Thurman, B., Diffley, M., McFarlane, M., and Zubairi, S., (2020). Gross Domestic Wellbeing (GDWe) An alternative measure of social progress. Carnegie UK Trust.