Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jones, Charles I.; Klenow, Peter J.
• 署名单位: Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20110236
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 2426-2457
• 关键词: consumption inequality; LIFE; ECONOMICS; HEALTH; RISK

摘要

We propose a summary statistic for the economic well-being of people in a country. Our measure incorporates consumption, leisure, mortality, and inequality, first for a narrow set of countries using detailed micro data, and then more broadly using multi-country datasets. While welfare is highly correlated with GDP per capita, deviations are often large. Western Europe looks considerably closer to the United States, emerging Asia has not caught up as much, and many developing countries are further behind. Each component we introduce plays a significant role in accounting for these differences, with mortality being most important.