Beyond GDP : measuring welfare and assessing sustainability / Marc Fleurbaey and Didier Blanchet.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fleurbaey, Marc.

Contributor:

Blanchet, Didier.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Welfare economics.

Gross domestic product.

Economic policy.

Social policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (323 p.)

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Is GDP a good proxy for social welfare? Building on economic theory, this book confirms that it is not, but also that most alternatives to it share its basic flaw, i.e., a focus on specific aspects of people's lives without sufficiently taking account of people's values and goals. A better approach is possible.

Contents:

Cover; Contents; Introduction: The Four Musketeers; 1. A Wealth of Indicators; 1.1. Introduction; 1.2. A bird's-eye view; 1.3. Aggregating the nonaggregatable?; 1.4. Correcting GDP; 1.5. Sustainability assessment: weak or strong?; 1.6. Coping with multidimensionality: dashboards; 1.7. The core question: how far can aggregation go?; 2. Measuring Sustainability; 2.1. Introduction; 2.2. Wealth and sustainable well-being; 2.2.1. Discounting future streams of well-being?; 2.2.2. From intertemporal well-being to sustainable consumption; 2.3. The savings approach: a reference framework

2.3.1. Shifting the focus to sustainability: why?2.3.2. Sustainability in imperfect but predictable economies; 2.3.3. An example; 2.4. The savings approach: many problems remain; 2.4.1. Monetization in practice; 2.4.2. Behavioral indeterminacy, or when "weak" indicators can turn out too strong; 2.4.3. Technological and normative uncertainties; 2.4.4. An additional problem: the cross-national dimension of unsustainability; 2.5. Conclusion: where to go from here?; 3. A Price for Everything?; 3.1. A revealed preference argument; 3.1.1. The argument for an individual consumer

3.1.2. Extending the argument to social welfare through a representative agent3.1.3. Extending the argument to social welfare with an optimality assumption; 3.2. A variant of the revealed preference argument; 3.3. The theory of index numbers; 3.3.1. An axiomatic approach; 3.3.2. Approximating welfare changes; 3.4. Decomposing welfare; 3.4.1. A first decomposition, with the social expenditure function; 3.4.2. A second decomposition, in terms of efficiency and equity; 3.4.3. A new decomposition, based on Bergson curves; 3.4.4. Another decomposition, for small variations

3.5. Specific problems with imputed prices and full income3.6. Conclusion; 4. Equivalent Income, or How to Value What Has No Price; 4.1. Money-metric utility and equivalent income; 4.2. Knockout criticisms?; 4.2.1. Not welfarist enough; 4.2.2. Too welfarist; 4.2.3. Potentially regressive; 4.2.4. Reference dependent; 4.2.5. Arrow's coup de grâce; 4.3. Fairness to the rescue; 4.3.1. The equivalence approach in fair allocation theory; 4.3.2. Arrow Independence is not compelling; 4.3.3. References need not be arbitrary; 4.3.4. The right dose of welfarism; 4.3.5. Bundle dominance is unacceptable

4.3.6. Egalitarianism is demanding4.4. Social welfare decomposition; 4.5. Conclusion; 5. Is Happiness All that Matters?; 5.1. The Easterlin paradox: Have we been wrong for 70,000 years?; 5.1.1. Bentham is back; 5.1.2. The debate about subjective welfarism; 5.1.3. Is happiness the ultimate goal?; 5.1.4. The key objection to subjective scores; 5.2. A theory of subjective well-being; 5.2.1. Affects and judgments; 5.2.2. The three problems of the respondent; 5.2.3. Heterogeneous and shifting standards; 5.2.4. What do people care about?; 5.2.5. Comparisons across preferences

5.3. Making use of happiness data

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on Apr. 24, 2013).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-19-934691-7

0-19-934415-9

OCLC:

843880796