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Living Wealth Indicators

[title] Mismeasuring Our Lives
Book by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, Jean-Pual Fitoussi

Origionally published on The New Press.

The [financial] crisis is teaching us a very important lesson: those attempting to guide the economy and our societies are like pilots trying to steer a course without a reliable compass.
—from Mismeasuring Our Lives...

[title] Growth That Costs More Than It's Worth
Article by Herman E. Daly

May 30, 2008 Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post by Herman Daly, noted expert in the field of ecological economics and professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Daly sends a new economy response to Robert Samuelson's prescription for ending global poverty [op-ed,...

[title] What's The Economy For, Anyway? (DVD)
Video by Dave Batker, John de Graaf

Ecological economist Dave Batker questions whether GDP is an adequate measure of society's well-being and suggests workable alternatives.

In this film produced by John de Graaf of Affluenza fame, ecological economist Dave Batker presents a humorous, edgy, factual, timely and highly-visual...

[title] The Happy Planet Index
Report by New Economics Foundation

The Happy Planet Index reveals the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered

The index combines environmental impact with human well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which, country by country, people live long and happy lives. Learn about the ideas...

[title] The Great Transition: A tale of how it turned out right
Report by New Economics Foundation

Creating a new kind of economy is crucial if we want to tackle climate change and avoid the mounting social problems associated with the rise of economic inequality. The Great Transition provides the first comprehensive blueprint for building an economy based on stability, sustainability and...

[title] Managing Without Growth
Book by Peter Victor Managing Without Growth

Peter Victor challenges the priority that rich countries continue to give to economic growth as an over-arching objective of economic policy. The challenge is based on a critical analysis of the literature on environmental and resource limits to growth, on the disconnect between higher incomes...

GDP and beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world
Report by Commission of the European Communities

Introduction:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the best known measure of macro-economic activity. Developed in the 1930s, GDP has become a standard benchmark used by policy-makers throughout the world and is widely used in public debates. GDP aggregates the value added of all money-based...

Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress
Report by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi

The Commission was created the beginning of 2008 by French President Sarkozy to address the adequacy of GDP as an appropriate indicator of economic performance.

[title] Prosperity without growth? The transition to a sustainable economy
Report by Tim Jackson

The economy is geared, above all, to economic growth. Economic policy in the current recession is all about returning to growth – but an economic crisis can be an opportunity for some basic rethinking and restructuring.

Two objectives other than growth – sustainability and wellbeing –...

[title] The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth (Historical)
Report by Kenneth Ewart Boulding

This paper was first presented by Kenneth Ewart Boulding at the Sixth Resources for the Future Forum on Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy in Washington, D.C. on March 8,1966.

In a "spaceship world," well-being is properly measured by the condition of stocks of food, oxygen, water...