The Empirics of Social Progress: The Interplay between Subjective Well-Being and Societal Performance
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pandp.20181036.pdf
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Author(s)
Fehder, Daniel Colin
Porter, Michael S.
Stern, Scott
Date Issued
May 2018
Journal
AEA Papers and Proceedings
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Fehder, Daniel, Michael Porter, and Scott Stern. “The Empirics of Social Progress: The Interplay Between Subjective Well-Being and Societal Performance.” AEA Papers and Proceedings 108 (2018): 477–82.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Though economists have long recognized that GDP is not by itself a measure of societal well-being, most GDP alternatives incorporate direct measures of economic performance. We propose instead an independently constructed measure, a social progress index, focusing exclusively on noneconomic dimensions of societal performance, highlighting three core dimensions—basic human needs, foundations of well-being, and opportunity. GDP and social progress are correlated but distinct, the social progress dimension least related to GDP (opportunity) is strongly related to subjective well-being, and the relationship between social progress and well-being is greater for individuals at lower relative income and educational attainment.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1257/PANDP.20181036
