Alternatives to GDP for measuring wellbeing

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Taken from the Economic Society of Australia (ESA) webinar Economic well-being: Is GDP the right measure? held as part of Social Sciences Week.

Note: There is a national account for digital production.

• Satellite National accounts are useful for this.
• Should things we don't usually account for (barter, volunteering, breast-feeding etc) be accounted?
• An index of a suite of different indicators (need judgement over weighting indicators).
• Some indicators you could use:
  • Education/Life Expectancy/Income (equally weighted)
    • Versions around development and gender
  • OECD's Better Life Index
    • 11 indicators equally weighted
    • website lets you weight things differently
  • New Economics Foundation's Happy Planet Index:
    • HPI = (Life satisfaction x Life expectancy x inequality of outcome) / ecological footprint
  • ABS Measure of Australia's progress, 2013 - 26 indicators
    • Discontinued
    • Too confusing to promote public discussion
  • NZ includes indicators arround the Maori language, Mauri wellbeing, and indicators based on Maori worldview.