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Measuring progress. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and alternative indicators in the context of sustainable development

Author: Theresa Klein

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2021-07-19

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 3346440516

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2021 in the subject Economics - Other, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Dortmund, language: English, abstract: Do well-known indicators really reflect what they are supposed to? Given today’s challenges regarding society, the environment and the economy, the sustainability of our economic system is questioned. GDP is currently one of the most important indicators of our economy and is considered a proxy of economic health and standard of living of a country. However, the measure poses problems in terms of the appropriate portrayal of genuine progress. This thesis aims at proposing alternative measures which represent sustainable development in an improved way over GDP. Thereby, the economic, social and ecological dimensions of sustainable development form the basis of examination. In the first place, GDP is examined for its suitability as a progress indicator. Its relevance in policy making and reasons for its persistence are worked out. Finally, alternatives which are grouped in adjusting, supplementing and replacing GDP, are presented and examined according to their coverage of the sustainable development dimensions. The examination shows that there are indeed measures which represent genuine progress in a better way. However, those indicators pose drawbacks regarding their methodology, credibility and complexity. Therefore, they cannot sufficiently replace or adjust GDP. Supplementing GDP currently appears to be the most feasible approach since it sets GDP in a more sustainable context without neglecting its benefits.

Towards Sustainable Development

Author: Philipp Schepelmann

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13:

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Towards Sustainable Development

Author: Philipp Schepelmann

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783929944815

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Economic performance of a country is generally being measured through GDP (Gross Domestic Product), a variable that has also become the de facto universal metric for "standards of living". However, GDP does not properly account for social and environmental costs and benefits. It is also difficult to achieve sustainable decision-making aiming at sustainable progress and well-being if welfare is being considered from a purely financial point of view. The study highlights the benefits and some of the shortcomings of GDP. It serves as a helpful and practicable instrument for monetary and fiscal policies. The real problem presumably is that GDP growth is too often confused with (sustainable) welfare growth in people's minds. While there certainly is a correlation between the two, this study shows that this is a highly conditional correlation, void of substantial causality for GDP levels observable in the European Union. In order to be able to assess people's well-being and general sustainable development in the sense of sustainability, an alternative instrument going beyond GDP is necessary. Using so called SWOT analyses, several alternative progress indicators have been assessed in the context of this study. On the one hand it was analysed how far ecological and social factors can be integrated in the GDP measurements. Thereby difficulties arose then trying to monetise these factors. As a further possibility indicators were analysed which are to replace GDP as a whole. The category supplementing GDP seems to be the most realistic and acceptable option for going beyond GDP. Within this approach, GDP is being complemented with additional environmental and/or social information. In order to make this kind of solution feasible the study claims the establishment of an overarching and transparent indicator system for improving economic decision-making in support of sustainable development.

Alternative Progress Indicators to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a Means Towards Sustainable Development

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 95

ISBN-13:

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Economic performance is generally being measured through GDP (Gross Domestic Product),a variable that has also become the de facto universal metric for 'standards of living'. It is universally applied according to common standards, and has some undeniable benefits mainly due to its simplicity. Unfortunately, this indicator grossly counts all transactions with a market price and thus bluntly adds up benefits and costs in its accounting. It thus converts (welfare-reducing) costs to perceived benefits.The indicator also fails to include non-market transactions, such as family work. Sustainable development and sustainable decision-making are difficult to achieve if welfare is being considered from a purely financial point of view. GDP does not adequately take into account human and social welfare. Furthermore, environmental costs such as the depletion of resources and the damage to the environment are also neglected. It is a valuable exercise to assess in how far environmental and social costs and benefits could be incorporated in the measures used to define 'development, wealth and well-being'. Chapter 2 of the study presents the conference and related events on global scale. Chapter 3 gives a brief overview of sustainable development, how to measure it and its relevance within policy-making. Chapter 4 explains the concept of GDP and the main shortcomings and benefits of this indicator. Chapter 5 explores a selected list of alternative 'progress indicators'for which the SWOT-analyses done by the Wuppertal Institute (2007) assess the Strengths,Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to be taken into account for a strategic management.Chapter 6 summarises the indicators and gives some conclusions and recommendations.

Beyond GDP

Author: Marc Fleurbaey

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-04-11

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0199346917

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In spite of recurrent criticism and an impressive production of alternative indicators by scholars and NGOs, GDP remains the central indicator of countries' success. This book revisits the foundations of indicators of social welfare, and critically examines the four main alternatives to GDP that have been proposed: composite indicators, subjective well-being indexes, capabilities (the underlying philosophy of the Human Development Index), and equivalent incomes. Its provocative thesis is that the problem with GDP is not that it uses a monetary metric but that it focuses on a narrow set of aspects of individual lives. It is actually possible to build an alternative, more comprehensive, monetary indicator that takes income as its first benchmark and adds or subtracts corrections that represent the benefit or cost of non-market aspects of individual lives. Such a measure can respect the values and preferences of the people and give as much weight as they do to the non-market dimensions. A further provocative idea is that, in contrast, most of the currently available alternative indicators, including subjective well-being indexes, are not as respectful of people's values because, like GDP, they are too narrow and give specific weights to the various dimensions of life in a more uniform way, without taking account of the diversity of views on life in the population. The popular attraction that such alternative indicators derive from being non-monetary is therefore based on equivocation. Moreover, it is argued in this book that "greening" GDP and relative indicators is not the proper way to incorporate sustainability concerns. Sustainability involves predicting possible future paths, therefore different indicators than those assessing the current situation. While various indicators have been popular (adjusted net savings, ecological footprint), none of them involves the necessary forecasting effort that a proper evaluation of possible futures requires.

Alternative Economic Indicators

Author: C. James Hueng

Publisher: W.E. Upjohn Institute

Published: 2020-09-08

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 0880996765

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Policymakers and business practitioners are eager to gain access to reliable information on the state of the economy for timely decision making. More so now than ever. Traditional economic indicators have been criticized for delayed reporting, out-of-date methodology, and neglecting some aspects of the economy. Recent advances in economic theory, econometrics, and information technology have fueled research in building broader, more accurate, and higher-frequency economic indicators. This volume contains contributions from a group of prominent economists who address alternative economic indicators, including indicators in the financial market, indicators for business cycles, and indicators of economic uncertainty.

Replacing GDP by 2030

Author: Rutger Hoekstra

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-05-30

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1108497330

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Proposes an new strategy for the beyond-GDP community which aims to replace the economic paradigm centred on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030.

Measuring Welfare Beyond Economics

Author: Claudio O. Delang

Publisher: Routledge, is

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780415813839

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Developed in the 1930s, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was never meant to be an indicator of the level of welfare of a population, but its emphasis by politicians and news outlets has made it become one of the most popular indicators of "development". Increasingly scholars have criticized the emphasis on the GDP, and put forward other indicators, amongst which is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), an aggregate index of over 20 economic, social and environmental indicators, which are added or subtracted depending on whether they are considered as contributing to, or subtracting from, people's welfare or well-being. The most interesting and useful research related to the GPI consists in its comparison to the GDP. This is the first book to calculate the GPI of Hong Kong and Singapore from 1968 to 2011. The book explores how in most other countries the GDP has increased faster than the GPI, with the GPI stabilizing during the 1970s or 1980s because the social and environmental costs of development associated with rapid economic growth slowed down "genuine progress", as measured by the GPI. This has been explained with the "threshold hypothesis", which states that once a certain level of development of a country is reached, the GPI no longer increases, even if the economy (as measured by the GDP) grows. Yet in Hong Kong and Singapore the GPI only stabilized in 1998. The book examines this in light of the deindustrialization of Hong Kong and Singapore, the Asian Economic Crisis, and the continued investment in infrastructure. The book also discusses the policy implications of a slowdown of the GPI, in terms of promoting a "steady state economy" where economic growth is no longer the goal of government policies.

Rethinking 'Progress'

Author: Aaron Packard

Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 9783843362856

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There is widespread and long running discontent with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of progress for society. A number of alternative measures have been proposed, including the Genuine Progress Index (GPI). A GPI has been developed by local government in the Wellington region (New Zealand) to facilitate a rethinking of conventional notions of 'progress'. The Wellington Region GPI (WRGPI) is a pluralistic index consisting of environmental, social, economic and cultural indicators with either physical or monetary values. This study explores a 'good practice' approach to public participation in the development of the GPI, and provides an overview of the context within which it fits. It considers the institutional barriers to the implementation of the WRGPI and provides recommendations of how deliberative and social learning techniques could be used to increase the likelihood that conventional notions of 'progress' will be replaced with more holistic ones."

Sustainability Indicators

Author: Simon Bell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-04

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 113655601X

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Praise for the first edition: 'This book should be of interest to anyone interested in sustainable development, and especially sustainability indicators. Bell and Morse easily succeed in exposing the fundamental paradoxes of these concepts and, more importantly, they offer us a way forward. Readers ... will find their practical recommendations for those attempting to do sustainability analysis in the field most welcome, which is also the book's greatest strength.' Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 'This book makes a valuable contribution to the theory and practice of using indicators for sustainability. It introduces systems ideas and a range of tools and techniques that have the potential to broaden and deepen our understanding of a whole range of complex situations. Well worth a closer look.' Christine Blackmore, Open University 'This is a book that explores new ways of thinking about how to measure sustainability... It offers stimulating food for thought for environmental educators and researchers.' Environmental Education Research 'This book tells me, as an SI 'practitioner', where I have been and why, and more importantly how I should be thinking in order to effectively present to and empower the local community in the years ahead.' David Ellis, Principal Pollution Monitoring Officer, Norwich City Council 'A practical guide to the development of sustainability indicators which offers a systemic and participative way to use them at local scale. Our preliminary results are highly positive and the approach is applicable in many contexts.' Elisabeth Coudert, Programme Officer Prospective and Regional Development, Blue Plan The groundbreaking first edition of Sustainability Indicators reviewed the development and value of sustainability indicators and discussed the advantage of taking a holistic and qualitative approach rather than focusing on strictly quantitative measures. In the new edition the authors bring the literature up to date and show that the basic requirement for a systemic approach is now well grounded in the evidence. They examine the origins and development of Systemic Sustainability Analysis (SSA) as a theoretical approach to sustainability which has been developed in practice in a number of countries on an array of projects since the first edition. They look at how SSA has evolved into the practical approaches of Systemic Prospective Sustainability Analysis (SPSA) and IMAGINE, and, in particular, how a wide range of participatory methodologies have been adopted over the years. They also provide an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of projects that undertake work in the general field of sustainable development.