IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/spmain/hal-03399466.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Measurement of Social Progress and Wellbeing: Some Further Thoughts

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-Paul Fitoussi

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Joseph Stiglitz

Abstract

Since 2008, the world has experienced several dramatic events: the financial crisis of 2007-08, the earthquake in Japan, the sovereign debt crisis and the revolutions in the Arab world. All of these developments have called into question not just our current policies, but also the measurement systems on which we base their configuration. What we measure affects what we do. Increasingly, there is a demand to go beyond measures of market activity (GDP) and towards measures of wellbeing. Reductions in wellbeing (following deteriorations in people's physical and psychological health, community life or employment status, or in the provision of environmental goods) that are accepted in the name of maximization of material wealth results in totally misguided policies. This article surveys some recent and clear instances in which our measurements have gone wrong, and suggests revisions that may translate into better informed and more sustainable policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Paul Fitoussi & Joseph Stiglitz, 2013. "On the Measurement of Social Progress and Wellbeing: Some Further Thoughts," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03399466, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03399466
    DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.12072
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03399466
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrei Bougrov & Robert Johnson & Benno Ndulo & Pedro Paez & Avinash Persaud & Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul & Akhtar Aziz Zeti & Charles Goodhart & Jomo Kwame Sundaram & Youssef Boutros-Ghali & José Anto, 2010. "The Stiglitz Report," Working Papers hal-03415638, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Sarracino & Luca Fumarco, 2020. "Assessing the Non-financial Outcomes of Social Enterprises in Luxembourg," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 425-451, September.
    2. Sarracino, Francesco & Gosset, Andrea, 2015. "The non-economic outcomes of social entrepreneurship in Luxembourg," MPRA Paper 69347, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Montero, Rodrigo & Miranda, Álvaro, 2020. "The determinants of life satisfaction among Chilean workers," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), August.
    4. Eduardo González & Ana Cárcaba & Juan Ventura, 2018. "Weight Constrained DEA Measurement of the Quality of Life in Spanish Municipalities in 2011," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 1157-1182, April.
    5. Ana Cárcaba & Eduardo González & Juan Ventura, 2017. "Social Progress in Spanish Municipalities (2001–2011)," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(4), pages 997-1019, December.
    6. Yue Qian & Wen Fan, 2019. "Men and Women at Work: Occupational Gender Composition and Affective Well-Being in the United States," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(7), pages 2077-2099, October.

    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. Simone Schneider, 2012. "Income Inequality and its Consequences for Life Satisfaction: What Role do Social Cognitions Play?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 106(3), pages 419-438, May.
    2. Mohaddes, M. & Nugent, J. & Selim, H., 2018. "Reforming Fiscal Institutions in Resource-Rich Arab Economies: Policy Proposals," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1848, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    3. Pak, Tae-Young, 2020. "Social protection for happiness? The impact of social pension reform on subjective well-being of the Korean elderly," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 349-366.
    4. Giorgio Calcagnini & Francesco Perugini, 2019. "A Well-Being Indicator for the Italian Provinces," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 149-177, February.
    5. Sinha, Kompal & Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M. & Sharma, Anurag, 2021. "Do socioeconomic health gradients persist over time and beyond income? A distributional analysis using UK biomarker data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    6. Daniele Girardi & Antonio Mura, 2014. "The Construction-Development Curve: Evidence from a New International Dataset," The IUP Journal of Applied Economics, IUP Publications, vol. 0(3), pages 7-26, July.
    7. George Ward, 2015. "Is Happiness a Predictor of Election Results?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1343, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Frederick Bird, 2016. "The Practice of Mining and Inclusive Wealth Development in Developing Countries," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(4), pages 631-643, June.
    9. Lieze Sohier, 2019. "Do Involuntary Longer Working Careers Reduce Well-being?," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 171-196, March.
    10. Benjamin Schalembier, 2016. "The Impact of Exposure to Other Countries on Life Satisfaction: An International Application of the Relative Income Hypothesis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 221-239, August.
    11. Alison Fairbrass & Georgina Mace & Paul Ekins & Ben Milligan, 2020. "The Natural Capital Indicator Framework (NCIF): A framework of indicators for national natural capital reporting," Papers 2005.08568, arXiv.org.
    12. Hudomiet, Péter & Hurd, Michael D. & Rohwedder, Susann, 2021. "The age profile of life satisfaction after age 65 in the U.S," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 431-442.
    13. Ludovico Carrino, 2016. "Data Versus Survey-based Normalisation in a Multidimensional Analysis of Social Inclusion," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 2(3), pages 305-345, November.
    14. Davillas, Apostolos & M. Jones, Andrew & Sinha, Kompal & Sharma, Anurag, 2018. "Distributional analysis of the role of breadth and persistence of multiple deprivation in the health gradient measured by biomarkers," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-14, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Mubashir Qasim & Arthur Grimes, 2018. "Sustainable economic policy and well-being: The relationship between adjusted net savings and subjective well-being," Working Papers 18_06, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    16. Chiara Elena Dalla & Menon Martina & Perali Federico, 2019. "An Integrated Database to Measure Living Standards," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 35(3), pages 531-576, September.
    17. Lidia Ceriani & Chiara Gigliarano, 2020. "Multidimensional Well-Being: A Bayesian Networks Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 237-263, November.
    18. Fitoussi Jean Paul & Saraceno Francesco, 2010. "Europe: How Deep Is a Crisis? Policy Responses and Structural Factors Behind Diverging Performances," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, January.
    19. Eleonora Matteazzi & Martina Menon & Federico Perali, 2017. "The Collective Farm-household Model: Policy and Welfare Simulations," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 39(1), pages 111-153.
    20. Jasper N. Meya & Stefan Baumgärtner & Moritz A. Drupp & Martin F. Quaas, 2020. "Inequality and the Value of Public Natural Capital," CESifo Working Paper Series 8752, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hal:spmain:hal-03399466. 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: Contact - Sciences Po Departement of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.