International Comparisons of Trends in Economic Well-Being
Abstract
This paper develops a new measure of economic well-being for selected OECD countries for the period 1980 to 1996 and compares trends in this new Index to GDP per capita. We argue that the economic well-being of a society depends on the level of average consumption flows, aggregate accumulation of productive stocks, inequality in the distribution of individual incomes and insecurity in the anticipation of future income. However, the weights attached to each component will vary, depending on the values of different observers. We argue that public debate would be improved if there is explicit consideration of the aspects of economic well-being obscured by average income trends and if the weights attached to these aspects were made visible and were open for discussion.
Keywords
Gross Domestic Product Economic Insecurity Luxembourg Income Study Physical Capital Stock Consumption FlowPreview
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