Recoupling Economic and Social Prosperity
, and
Katharina Lima de Miranda
No 14421, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Abstract:
This paper explores a new theoretical and empirical approach to the assessment of human well-being, relevant to current challenges of social fragmentation in the presence of globalization and technological advance. We present two indexes of well-being—solidarity (S) and agency (A) —to be considered alongside the standard indexes of material gain (G) and environmental sustainability (E). The four indexes—SAGE—form a balanced dashboard for evaluating well-being. The solidarity index covers the needs of humans as social creatures, living in societies that generate a sense of social belonging. The agency index involves people’s need to influence their fate through their own efforts. While “economic prosperity†(material gain) is conventionally measured through GDP per capita, “social prosperity†can be measured through our solidarity and agency indexes, alongside environmental sustainability that is measured through the Environmental Performance Index. The SAGE dashboard is meant to provide a "sage" approach to assessing well-being, since it aims to denote sagacity in the pursuit and satisfaction of fundamental human needs and purposes. Many of the prominent challenges of the twenty-first century, including the dissatisfaction of population groups who feel left behind by globalization and technological advance, may be viewed in terms of a “decoupling†of economic prosperity from social prosperity. We present a theoretical model that provides a new perspective on the welfare effects of globalization and automation. The dashboard is meant to provide an empirical basis for mobilizing action in government, business and civil society to promote a recoupling of economic and social prosperity.
Keywords: Beyond gdp; Inequality; Empowerment; Social cohesion; Social inclusion; Social solidarity; Social sustainability; Well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)
Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14421 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
Related works:
Working Paper: Recoupling Economic and Social Prosperity (2020) 
Working Paper: Recoupling Economic and Social Prosperity (2020) 
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:cpr:ceprdp:14421
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14421
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().