Is Economic Growth Sustainable? : Conflicting Signals from International Organisations
(2023) In Environmental and One Health Economics Working Papers- Abstract
- There has been widespread debate about whether the way in which we measure economic activity is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. One aspect to this debate is to move away from measuring a nation’s income (GDP), towards monitoring a nation's assets (their inclusive wealth), as a better indicator of sustainable economic development. We provide the first critical comparison of the approaches of leading international organisations – the World Bank and United Nations Environment Programme- to estimating changes in wealth. Our paper reveals important inconsistencies in how these organisations measure sustainability, and the conflicting messages that policy makers receive, despite a common underlying conceptual framework linking... (More)
- There has been widespread debate about whether the way in which we measure economic activity is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. One aspect to this debate is to move away from measuring a nation’s income (GDP), towards monitoring a nation's assets (their inclusive wealth), as a better indicator of sustainable economic development. We provide the first critical comparison of the approaches of leading international organisations – the World Bank and United Nations Environment Programme- to estimating changes in wealth. Our paper reveals important inconsistencies in how these organisations measure sustainability, and the conflicting messages that policy makers receive, despite a common underlying conceptual framework linking changes in a nation’s wealth to future well-being. At the most extreme, countries that perform the worst according to the UN are shown to perform well according to the World Bank. This confusion in signals makes better policy making more difficult. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3046fe42-e7f2-4e73-9b92-e5e7338d9f9a
- author
- McLaughin, Eoin ; Ducoing, Cristian LU and Hanley, Nick
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-06
- type
- Working paper/Preprint
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Wealth, Sustainability, Natural capital, sustainabie development, Q01, Q32, Q56, N50, N10, O13, O44
- in
- Environmental and One Health Economics Working Papers
- pages
- 31 pages
- project
- Genuine Savings as a measure of sustainable development. Towards a GDP replacement.
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 3046fe42-e7f2-4e73-9b92-e5e7338d9f9a
- alternative location
- https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_969011_smxx.pdf
- date added to LUP
- 2023-06-15 09:53:14
- date last changed
- 2023-06-16 08:59:32
@misc{3046fe42-e7f2-4e73-9b92-e5e7338d9f9a, abstract = {{There has been widespread debate about whether the way in which we measure economic activity is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. One aspect to this debate is to move away from measuring a nation’s income (GDP), towards monitoring a nation's assets (their inclusive wealth), as a better indicator of sustainable economic development. We provide the first critical comparison of the approaches of leading international organisations – the World Bank and United Nations Environment Programme- to estimating changes in wealth. Our paper reveals important inconsistencies in how these organisations measure sustainability, and the conflicting messages that policy makers receive, despite a common underlying conceptual framework linking changes in a nation’s wealth to future well-being. At the most extreme, countries that perform the worst according to the UN are shown to perform well according to the World Bank. This confusion in signals makes better policy making more difficult.}}, author = {{McLaughin, Eoin and Ducoing, Cristian and Hanley, Nick}}, keywords = {{Wealth; Sustainability; Natural capital; sustainabie development; Q01; Q32; Q56; N50; N10; O13; O44}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Working Paper}}, series = {{Environmental and One Health Economics Working Papers}}, title = {{Is Economic Growth Sustainable? : Conflicting Signals from International Organisations}}, url = {{https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_969011_smxx.pdf}}, year = {{2023}}, }