The Wellbeing of Nations: Meaning, Motive and Measurement

Preface

In searching for a title for this book we quickly settled on ‘The Wellbeing of Nations’ with more than a nod to Adam Smith's great work, ‘The Wealth of Nations’. Would that our book becomes as well known and as long lasting as his! We do feel we are in the same territory, especially as some initiatives to measure national wellbeing and progress talk about the ‘true wealth’ of nations. It seems to us that looking at stocks and capitals – not just financial wealth but also human, social and natural capital – could in the longer run provide a substantial bedrock on which to build measures of national wellbeing, sustainable development and progress.

However, our much more modest aim in writing this book is to record the considerable interest around the world in measuring wellbeing and progress in ways that go beyond purely economic measures, and the headline measure of GDP in particular. Many initiatives and new measures are being produced at local, national and international levels. Many are well established. We do detect a build up of interest and, perhaps, some convergence of established approaches such as quality of life measures, sustainable development and human development indicators. However, rather than just documenting these initiatives – an almost impossible task given the range and dynamicism of this area – we set out to reflect on all of this and, in the words of our subtitle, to consider the meaning of national wellbeing and the motive for measuring it, as ...