Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success. Countries should act now to embrace new metrics, urge Robert Costanza and colleagues.

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Development: Time to leave GDP behind

Modelling and measuring sustainable wellbeing in connection with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

A comprehensive index for a sustainable society: The SSI — the Sustainable Society Index

In this chapter we describe what an “ecological economy” could look like and how we could get there. We believe that this future can provide full employment and a high quality of life for everyone into the indefinite future while staying within the safe environmental operating space for humanity on earth. Developed countries have a special responsibility for achieving those goals. To get there, we need to stabilize population; more equitably share resources, income, and work; invest in the natural and social capital commons; reform the financial system to better reflect real assets and liabilities; create better measures of progress; reform tax systems to tax “bads” rather than goods; promote technological innovations that support well-being rather than growth; establish “strong democracy,” and create a culture of well-being rather than consumption. In other words, a complete makeover. Several lines of evidence show that these policies are mutually supportive and the resulting system is feasible. The substantial challenge is making the transition to this better world in a peaceful and positive way. There is no way to predict the exact path this transition might take, but we hope that painting this picture of a possible end-point and some milestones along the way will help make this choice and this journey a more viable option.

/pdf/building-a-sustainable-and-desirable-economy-in-society-in-2rpjbe5rol.pdf

Building a Sustainable and Desirable Economy-in-Society-in-Nature

This study examines connections between intergroup inequality and macroeconomic outcomes, considering various channels through which gender, growth, and development interact. It upholds the salience not only of equality in opportunities but also equality in outcomes. The contribution argues that inequalities based on gender, race, ethnicity, and class undermine the ability to provision and expand capabilities, and it examines the macroeconomic policies that are likely to promote broadly shared development. It explores how the macroeconomy acts as a structure of constraint in achieving gender equality and in turn how gender relations in areas like education and wage gaps can have macro-level impacts. Further, it underscores that the interaction of the macroeconomy and gender relations depends on the structure of the economy, the nature of job segregation, the particular measure of gender inequality, and a country's international relations. Finally, it outlines policies for promoting gender equalit...

Feminist Economics of Inequality, Development, and Growth

/pdf/the-genuine-progress-indicator-2006-1qlqrjoxm3.pdf

The Genuine Progress Indicator 2006

The Challenge of Sustainable Welfare Measurement 18
Section 1: Evolution of the Genuine Progress Indicator Framework ....... 20
Section 2: How the GPI Attempts to Correct These Deficiencies 21
Section 3: Theory and Critiques 22
Section 4: An Updated GPI Methodology 25GPI Contributions 27
Item E: Value of Household Work and Parenting 27
Item F: Value of Higher Education 28
Item G: Value of Volunteer Work 28GPI Deductions 29
Item N: Cost of Commuting 29
Item P: Cost of Automobile Accidents 30
Item Q: Cost of Water Pollution 30
Item T: Loss of Wetlands 32
Item U: Loss of Farmland 32
Item V: Loss of Primary Forests and Damage from Logging 
Roads 34
Item X: Carbon Dioxide Emissions Damage 36
Item Y: Cost of Ozone Depletion 37
Item AB: The Genuine Progress Indicator 38
Item AC: Per Capita GPI 38Section 5: Results and Implications 38
Section 6: Using GPI as a Guide to Public Policy 43Economic Globalization 44On October 28, 2005, the following headlines appeared in leading newspapers throughout the United States:“GDP Muscles Through”“Economy Brushes Off Storms and Expands by 3.8 Percent in 3Q, 
Beating Estimates”“The U.S. Economy Shook Off Headwinds from Hurricanes Katrina 
and Rita to Grow at a Faster-than-Expected 3.8 Percent Annual 
Rate in the Third Quarter, a Commerce Department Report 
Showed Friday” (Reuters)Perhaps no headline in recent history does a better job of illustrating 
why our nation’s most trusted measure of economic performance is so 
woefully out of sync with people’s everyday experiences. In one swoop, 
these headlines dismissed the inequitable and catastrophic social, environmental, and economic toll associated with 1,836 preventable deaths; 
over 850,000 housing units damaged, destroyed, or left uninhabitable; 
disruption of 600,000 jobs; permanent inundation of 118 square miles of 
marshland; destruction of 1.3 million acres of forest; and contamination 
caused by millions of gallons of floodwaters tainted by sewage, oil, heavy 
metals, pesticides, and other toxins as irrelevant to the U.S. economy.1

John Talberth

Papers

The Genuine Progress Indicator 2006

Sustainable Development and the Genuine Progress Indicator: An Updated Methodology and Application in Policy Settings