Perspectives On Wellbeing And Genuine Progress Indicator Metrics : Analysis

14. Explain why a nation’s GDP is both a good and poor measure of its economic well-being and progress?

Economic growth means that everyone can benefit in a country, but this is not occurring in Canada. This is because the rich are getting richer

Canada is regarded as one of the wealthiest industrialized countries in the world. This indication is contrary to the well-being reality affecting Canadians. Despite being part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD), Canada has lagged behind her otherwise wealthy counterparts in the industrialized countries being position 19 out of 22 nations (Breznitz and Zysman, 2013). This has been attributed to the precarious levels of poverty in a majority of Canadian households. The country has not recognized any official poverty measurement although other universal measures such as LICO is used for measuring relative poverty, a more determinable measure of poverty for wealthy countries.

“Since the beginning of the 20th century, global life expectancy has increased by 118%, infant mortality has declined by 81%, per person income has improved by 403% (in real dollars), all while human population has increased by more than 4x from 1.7 billion to 7.1 billion” (Allis). From that quote, it is shown that the statistics revolving around life have all improved. Education has become a factor that the majority of the population has access to. “The rates of literacy have also risen, going from 42% in 1900, to 84% in 2012; doubling themselves in a little over a century” (Allis). “According to a Harvard study, higher levels of education result in economic growth” (Aghion, Boustan, Hoxby, Vandenbussche). Following with this idea, the gross domestic product (GDP), the main indicator of the standing of an economy, has steadily been on the rise. The GDP per capita started at about $15,000 in 1950 and has reached a staggering $53,000 today” (Roser). This basically means that the total value of all produced goods in the world divided by the population has risen by that much. “The average world income per person has also reached a pinnacle $10,070- five times that of a century ago. Reducing death and disease and incomes rising sufficiently to enable access to food, water, shelter, sanitation, healthcare, and electricity increases the quality of

The GDP per capita is frequently used as a pointer as the average of living for individuals in a specific area, and economic growth means the increase in the average standard of living. Though, there are a few struggles in using the GDP per capita to calculate the general well being. For example: 1- GDP does not provide any information relevant to the sharing of income in a

Measures of economic well-being such as GDP are subject to some limitations hence it is appropriate to use other alternative measures of economic growth. The limitations of GDP in measuring the economic well-being of a country include failure to capture the underground economy and failure to capture changes inequality. Others include the development of new products and failure to take in account human or leisure costs (Maddison 48).

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. (2013, January 15). Indicators of well being in Canada. Retrieved February 10, 2013, from Human Resources and Skills Development Web site: http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca

The ideas continued to develop and by the 1970s there was a realization that “progress” had provided an excuse for “the reign of the free market, for colonial exploitation of non-Western societies, and for ravaging the biosphere”. (Du Pisani, 2007) In 1983 the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) addressed these issues and four years later they released The Brundtland Report. It centres around the interests and needs of humankind and argues for global equity for future generations by encouraging economic growth in poorer nations. It also argues that social equity, economic growth and environmental maintenance are all possible and core elements of the practice of SD. It also offers a definition of SD that has achieved widespread recognition.

In the Winterbourne View Hospital there was an absence of wellbeing based on what Diener (2000) calls subjective wellbeing. This is where a person experiences a high (subjective wellbeing) satisfaction such as feelings of joy and low (subjective wellbeing) if the individual is dissatisfied with life and feels sadness (Diener, 2000). Diener’s view of wellbeing is socially constructed which involves making sense of things based on comparisions with societal values. Optimistic cultures such as the United Kingdom tend to emphasies the positive aspects of life while pessimistic cultures such as France have been noted to look at the shortcomings of life (Diener, 2000; Myers et al. 2014). Social comparisons clearly are at play here in deciding who

Robert F Keneddy speech on GDP highlighted the unique aspects associated with the understanding of GDP. The speech talked about the meaning and importance of GDP and the misinterpretations that are often attached with the concept. He was of the view that accumulation of material things has remained a main focus of economic agents and doing so community values and community excellence are often compromised. In his speech he presented an important concept that GDP cannot be used as a measure of welfare of wellbeing of the economy because it does not take into account the health of individuals, their standard of living, quality of education provided to the individuals etc. In this way it is not a good option to rely on GDP while having an idea about the development of an economy.

From the earliest days of civilized society, each generation seeks to advance their lives to be easier, more efficient, or more productive in one way or another. This advancement, this growth, this knowledge increase is also known as development. As societies developed and the concept of money was introduced, personal wealth was seen as the most common way to measure success and prestige. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita measure was introduced to compare living conditions between countries. However, comparing wealth cannot be the only measure of assessing how developed group of people are. In order to understand development, the best social welfare function measures how empowered people are on average to a long life where they have

I will advance the thesis that the Human Development Index (HDI) is a better measure of economic performance than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. By saying that the HDI is a better system to measure economic performance, I mean that because the HDI highlights the trend between longevity, education and economic growth, it calculates a better analysis of an economy (Costa, Steckel 1997, p. 71). In contrast, the GDP per capita only accounts for the gross domestic product without paying any attention to other factors of an economy (Hawthorn, Sen 1997, p. 60). With this being said, my thesis asserts that the HDI is a better measure for economic performance because it considers significant factors that play large roles in an

In this assignment, I aim to explain the definition of Gross Domestic Product, how it is calculated and how using GDP is a good measure of the economic well-being. First, we need to know what GDP is. According to M.Parkin, ‘’GDP or Gross Domestic Product is the market value of all the final goods and services produced within a country in a given time period” (Parkin M, (2008) Economics, 8th edition). It measures the value of production a quarter of a year. It is also used to measure the general health of the economy. “Countries seek to increase their GDP in order to increase their standard of living. But growth in GDP does not result in increased purchasing power if the growth is due to inflation or population increase. For purchasing power, it is the real, per capita GDP that is important” (http://www.quickmba.com/econ/macro/gdp/ [Accessed 2 Dec. 2014].

Chapter 6 1. “Providing the typical person alive in the future with a standard of living, including both material and environmental welfare, at least as high as that enjoyed by the typical person today” is one way to define sustainability. 2. GDP is a poor measure of sustainability because it: 1) fails to include the values of nonmarket production 2)

Every country around the world uses GDP as a way to monitor the overall “output” of its economy, and an understanding of this measurement is vital to success in economics. The text book defines “real GDP” as, “the total value of all final goods and services produced in the economy during a given year, calculated using the prices of a selected base year” (Textbook). The book later goes on to define “GDP per capita” as the “GDP divided by the size of the population; equivalent to the average GDP per person” (Textbook). So, logically we could draw the conclusion that the “real GDP per capita” is simply the real GDP of a nation’s economy divided by the population of said nation, or in other words, it’s “a measure of an economy’s average aggregate output per person” (Textbook pg. 201). Perhaps one of the most defining factors of a country, when compared to other countries, is the overall “standard of living”. The quality of life within countries can vary greatly, even between neighboring, geographical nations. Many people have come to believe that the standard of living within a country is directly proportional to the country’s “real GDP per capita”, when in fact this is far from true. In reality, a “high GDP per capita makes it easier to achieve a good life but countries aren’t equally successful in taking advantage of that possibility” (Textbook pg. 200). It is clear that a country’s standard of living ultimately depends on its ability to effectively use the