Alternative indicators for economic welfare and well-being: a transatlantic update

In recent years there has been a flurry of activity in proposing U+201CnewU+201D sets of alternative (economic) indicators, dashboards or composite indicators, to which Ecological Economics has been a forerunner with the development of the ISEW and GPI. The North American status of those will be well-presented at the CANUSSEE conference, especially with the work on state level GPI accounts that one of the authors has been part of. So, as a complement, this paper will give a systematic overview of current developments, both political and scientific, in Europe. The French parliament is in the process of instituting a set of new measures; the German parliament presented a dashboard; German Länder are increasingly adopting measures similar to the GPI, connected to one of the authors; Flanders (Belgium) included the ISEW in its headline set of indicators (based on work by one of the authors). The EU had an ambitious U+201CBeyond GDPU+201D approach, but seems to fall back into old patterns. The proposed paper will be a summary of these and further European debates, inter alia pointing out opportunities and barriers for the use of alternative indicators, and part of a process aimed at connecting some of the scientific developments on both sides of the Atlantic at the next ISEE conference. Thus, it aims to facilitate exchange between the indicator-focussed sessions in Vancouver and relevant sessions at the preceding ESEE conference in Leeds, especially one on U+201Cincreasing the policy value of alternative measures of economic welfareU+201D facilitated by two of the authors.

Jaar van publicatie:2015