IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envval/v16y2007i1p43-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Perception and Ensemble of Macro Objectives and Measures: The Paradox of the Index for Sustainable Economic Welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Rafael Ziegler

Abstract

Macroeconomic measures and objectives inform and structure political perception in large systems of governance. Herman Daly and John Cobb attack the objective and measure of economic growth in For the Common Good . However, their attack is paradoxical: 1) they are in favour of strong sustainability, but construct with the ISEW an index of weak sustainability, and 2) they describe humans as persons-in-community, but propose an index based on personal consumption. While the ISEW has attracted much attention, the same cannot be said about the person-in-community ontology developed at length and prominently in their work. This essay therefore aims to reconstruct Daly and Cobb's criticism of growth from the person-in-community approach. It defends the ISEW as a debunking index that is motivated by the person-in-community approach and the economy-ecology scale problem, and that also engages in the politics of scale. But this does not mean that the ISEW is also a measure of sustainable economic welfare. Critics expecting this kind of sustainability index are likely to see contradictions, but not the critical role the ISEW can play for democratic accountability. Understanding the latter makes it possible to see the ISEW as a step in the evolution of political perception and action. Accordingly the essay is also intended as a contribution to the understanding of this role in a situation where sustainability indices continue to be calculated, and renewed efforts at the measurement of welfare and happiness are made.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafael Ziegler, 2007. "Political Perception and Ensemble of Macro Objectives and Measures: The Paradox of the Index for Sustainable Economic Welfare," Environmental Values, , vol. 16(1), pages 43-60, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envval:v:16:y:2007:i:1:p:43-60
    DOI: 10.1177/096327190701600104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/096327190701600104
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/096327190701600104?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric Neumayer, 1999. "The ISEW -- not an Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 77-101, September.
    2. Lawn, Philip A., 2003. "A theoretical foundation to support the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), and other related indexes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 105-118, February.
    3. Daly, Herman E., 1992. "Allocation, distribution, and scale: towards an economics that is efficient, just, and sustainable," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 185-193, December.
    4. Herman E. Daly, 1995. "On Wilfred Beckerman's Critique of Sustainable Development," Environmental Values, , vol. 4(1), pages 49-55, February.
    5. Scharpf, Fritz W., 1999. "Regieren in Europa: Effektiv und demokratisch?," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 0, number sbd-1999.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lawn, Philip, 2013. "The failure of the ISEW and GPI to fully account for changes in human-health capital — A methodological shortcoming not a theoretical weakness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 167-177.
    2. Daniel Ştefan Armeanu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2017. "Empirical Study towards the Drivers of Sustainable Economic Growth in EU-28 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, December.
    3. O'Mahony, Tadhg & Escardó-Serra, Paula & Dufour, Javier, 2018. "Revisiting ISEW Valuation Approaches: The Case of Spain Including the Costs of Energy Depletion and of Climate Change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 292-303.
    4. Michael B. Wironen & Robert V. Bartlett & Jon D. Erickson, 2019. "Deliberation and the Promise of a Deeply Democratic Sustainability Transition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-18, February.
    5. Hajkowicz, Stefan, 2006. "Multi-attributed environmental index construction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 122-139, April.
    6. Fox, Mairi-Jane V. & Erickson, Jon D., 2018. "Genuine Economic Progress in the United States: A Fifty State Study and Comparative Assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 29-35.
    7. Brennan, Andrew John, 2013. "A critique of the perceived solid conceptual foundations of ISEW & GPI — Irving Fisher's cognisance of human-health capital in ‘net psychic income’," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 159-166.
    8. Bei He & Xiaoyun Du & Junkang Li & Dan Chen, 2023. "A Effectiveness-and Efficiency-Based Improved Approach for Measuring Ecological Well-Being Performance in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-29, January.
    9. O'Neill, Daniel W., 2012. "Measuring progress in the degrowth transition to a steady state economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 221-231.
    10. Bleys, Brent & Whitby, Alistair, 2015. "Barriers and opportunities for alternative measures of economic welfare," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 162-172.
    11. Luke McGrath & Stephen Hynes & John McHale, 2022. "The Air we Breathe: Estimates of Air Pollution Extended Genuine Savings for Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 161-188, March.
    12. Cook, David & Davidsdottir, Brynhildur & Petursson, Jón Geir, 2015. "Accounting for the utilisation of geothermal energy resources within the genuine progress indicator—A methodological review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 211-220.
    13. Emanuele Felice, 2012. "Neither dashboard nor 'mashup' indices: an empirical wealth approach as a pathway to a comprehensive measure of development," UHE Working papers 2012_01, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    14. Emanuele Felice, 2016. "The Misty Grail: The Search for a Comprehensive Measure of Development and the Reasons for GDP Primacy," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(5), pages 967-994, September.
    15. Simon Feeny & Heather Mitchell & Christine Tran & Matthew Clarke, 2013. "The Determinants of Economic Growth Versus Genuine Progress in South Korea," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 1055-1074, September.
    16. Fox, Mairi-Jane V. & Erickson, Jon D., 2020. "Design and meaning of the genuine progress indicator: A statistical analysis of the U.S. fifty-state model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    17. Pulselli, Federico Maria & Ciampalini, Francesca & Tiezzi, Enzo & Zappia, Carlo, 2006. "The index of sustainable economic welfare (ISEW) for a local authority: A case study in Italy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 271-281, November.
    18. Philip Lawn, 2007. "A Stock-Take of Green National Accounting Initiatives," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 427-460, January.
    19. Pennekamp, Johannes, 2011. "Wohlstand ohne Wachstum: Ein Literaturüberblick," MPIfG Working Paper 11/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    20. Clarke, Matthew & Islam, Sardar M.N., 2005. "Diminishing and negative welfare returns of economic growth: an index of sustainable economic welfare (ISEW) for Thailand," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 81-93, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envval:v:16:y:2007:i:1:p:43-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.