Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time

Charles Jones and Pete Klenow

No 16352, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We propose a summary statistic for the economic well-being of people in a country. Our measure incorporates consumption, leisure, mortality, and inequality, first for a narrow set of countries using detailed micro data, and then more broadly using multi-country data sets. While welfare is highly correlated with GDP per capita, deviations are often large. Western Europe looks considerably closer to the U.S., emerging Asia has not caught up as much, and many developing countries are further behind. Each component we introduce plays a significant role in accounting for these differences, with mortality being most important.

JEL-codes: O10 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (76)

Published as Charles I. Jones & Peter J. Klenow, 2016. "Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time," American Economic Review, vol 106(9), pages 2426-2457.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time (2016)
Working Paper: Beyond GDP? Welfare Across Countries and Time (2010)
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