Beyond GDP: A Welfare-Based Estimate of Growth for 14 European Countries and the USA Over Past Decades
Jean-Marc Germain
Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 2023, issue 539, 3-25
Abstract:
[eng] Measurements and perceptions of growth are often contrasting and, indeed, GDP growth does not necessarily imply an economic improvement that is felt by the population. In order to quantify this difference, we are developing an indicator of monetary well‑being called “Real Feel GDP”, which measures, in a money metric, the national average contribution of income to life satisfaction. It offers a retrospective view that is very different from that measured by GDP. For example, in the United States, Real Feel GDP stagnated between 1978 and 2020, while GDP tripled. The gap between Europe and the United States has widened in terms of GDP per capita, but it has narrowed in terms of Real Feel GDP per capita, with countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Finland and France even overtaking the United States. We also see that economic crises last much longer as measured by Real Feel GDP growth, up to a decade, compared to one or two years with the conventional measurement of growth.
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://WWW.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/7647298/01_ES539_Germain_EN.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nse:ecosta:ecostat_2023_539_1
DOI: 10.24187/ecostat.2023.539.2095
Access Statistics for this article
Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics is currently edited by Dominique Goux
More articles in Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics from Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Veronique Egloff ().