In February of 2008, amid the looming global financial crisis, President
Nicolas Sarkozy of France asked Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph
Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, along with the distinguished French economist
Jean Paul Fitoussi, to establish a commission of leading economists to
study whether Gross Domestic Product (GDP)--the most widely used measure
of economic activity--is a reliable indicator of economic and social
progress. The Commission was given the further task of laying out an
agenda for developing better measures.
Mismeasuring Our Lives is the result of this major intellectual
effort, one with pressing relevance for anyone engaged in assessing how
and whether our economy is serving the needs of our society. The authors
offer a sweeping assessment of the limits of GDP as a measurement of the
well-being of societies--considering, for example, how GDP overlooks
economic inequality (with the result that most people can be worse off
even though average income is increasing); and does not factor
environmental impacts into economic decisions.
In place of GDP, Mismeasuring Our Lives introduces a bold new array of
concepts, from sustainable measures of economic welfare, to measures of
savings and wealth, to a "green GDP." At a time when policymakers
worldwide are grappling with unprecedented global financial and
environmental issues, here is an essential guide to measuring the things
that matter.
