The Evolution of National Accounting and New Statistical Information: Happiness and Gross Domestic Product, Can We Measure It?

Fabrizio Antolini ()
Additional contact information
Fabrizio Antolini: Università degli Studi di Teramo

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2016, vol. 129, issue 3, No 7, 1075-1092

Abstract: Abstract Studies on happiness have acquired a particular importance over time. They have been considered useful not only for addressing policies on income production and distribution, but also in the quest for achieving happiness. This article will examine the following aspects: (a) reasons why in the future, the System of National Accounts (SNA) will have to introduce happiness as an economic aggregate measure following the “Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development” (R. 65/309) resolution, thus reconsidering SNA reference standards; (b) an evaluation of whether or not the introduction of happiness into the SNA and gross domestic product is methodologically correct; (c) the possibility of introducing a new objective indicator (coherent, pertinent and relevant) to measure the discomfort of society due to modernization; (d) to provide empirical evidence of this discomfort through the use of various approaches that take antidepressant expenditure into consideration as a new measure of unhappiness.

Keywords: GDP; Well-being; Happiness; Economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 E01 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-015-1156-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:soinre:v:129:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-015-1156-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-1156-6

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().