Going beyond GDP: empirical findings

Carlotta Balestra, Romina Boarini and Nicolas Ruiz

Chapter 2 in Handbook of Research on Economic and Social Well-Being, 2018, pp 52-103 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The chapter presents an overview of several challenging issues related to the assessment of well-being through measures aimed at looking ‘beyond GDP’. Although designed to measure aggregate economic performance from a macroeconomic perspective, gross domestoc product (GDP) has been extensively used to measure welfare, with a number of problems and limitations. Starting from the mid-1970s, criticisms to this approach encouraged early attempts to create alternative measures for GDP. The Great Recession and inequality considerations further prompted the discussion through national and international initiatives. These gave birth to a set of measures and frameworks which focus more on the individuals, entailing considerations on the distribution of well-being, multidimensionality and subjective perceptions. The chapter reviews some of these measures, addressing the main issues and techniques as well as outlining the greatest statistical challenges linked to the measurement of progress and well-being.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Social Policy and Sociology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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