Obviously, a lot of academic work has been done to arrive at a more intelligent method for measuring progress. As early as the 1970s, a few individual economists were involved in this, including Roefie Hueting in The Netherlands. But certainly also Herman Daly and John Cobb should be mentioned with their Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, published in 1989. More recent work has been done by economists like Stiglitz, Sen, Fitoussi [“Report by the Commission on the
Measurement of Economic
Performance and Social Progress”] and many others. Important studies and proposals based on this report have further been made by the OECD. In November 2018 “Beyond GDP – Measuring What Counts for Economic and Social Performance” was publised. In my view a milestone event.
Its press release a.o. stated: “Better measurement of the economy and of people’s well-being could have led governments to respond more strongly to mitigate the damage caused by the 2008 financial crisis and reduce people’s continuing loss of trust in public institutions. This dashboard of indicators should encompass the most important dimensions of people’s lives, such as skills, health, jobs and income, as well as economic security, environmental degradation and trust. It should pay attention not just to average outcomes but also to how policies affect each of the segments of society, and give a balanced consideration to well-being today and in the future”.