IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mth/ieb888/v8y2022i1p1-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From the Ancient Eudaimonia to Modern Indices: A Critical View

Author

Listed:
  • Mihail Diakomihalis

Abstract

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is an index that has been used by all free economy countries for almost a century. However, it has been criticized by many researchers and politicians for its misleading messages about the real wealth of people, its inability to evaluate the effect of environmentally harmful activities, the well-being of societies, the exclusion of non-market activities which exist in all economies, and the non-transactional services provided by the natural environment. This study aims to analyze and evaluate GDP and ten more alternative indicators as to their Simplicity, Comprehensibility, Completeness and Reliability, using a questionnaire addressed to experts, i.e., university professors. SWB (Subjective Well-Being) has been assessed as the preferred index for an overall evaluation, while the FSI (Failed States Index) ranks in the last position. GDP received its highest ranking as second in Reliability, with Gross National Income (GNI) ranking first. SWB refers to and evokes the direct democracy of 5th century Athens with its Simplicity, Comprehensibility, and Completeness, but not for its Reliability, due to the difficulty of its measurement. A combination of SWB with GNI might produce a reliable GDP alternative.

Suggested Citation

  • Mihail Diakomihalis, 2022. "From the Ancient Eudaimonia to Modern Indices: A Critical View," Issues in Economics and Business, Macrothink Institute, vol. 8(1), pages 1-18, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:mth:ieb888:v:8:y:2022:i:1:p:1-18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ieb/article/download/19650/15252
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ieb/article/view/19650
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Thomas & Joanne Evans, 2010. "There's more to life than GDP but how can we measure it?," Economic & Labour Market Review, Palgrave Macmillan;Office for National Statistics, vol. 4(9), pages 29-36, August.
    2. Walter J. Radermacher, 2015. "Recent and Future Developments Related to “Gdp and Beyond”," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(1), pages 18-24, March.
    3. Hicks, Norman & Streeten, Paul, 1979. "Indicators of development: The search for a basic needs yardstick," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 567-580, June.
    4. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1988. "Money, Credit, and Business Fluctuations," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 64(4), pages 307-322, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2004. "On the Measurement of Human Well-being: Fuzzy Set Theory and Sen's Capability Approach," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-16, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 726-745.
    3. Astrid Sneyers & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2013. "Girl Power in Agricultural Production: How Much Does it Yield? A Case-Study on the Dairy Sector in India," Working Papers id:5562, eSocialSciences.
    4. John Mbaku, 1992. "Political instability and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Further evidence," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 39-53, June.
    5. Michele Alacevich, 2010. "Development Agency or Bank? Vision and Strategy of the World Bank in the 50’s and 60’s," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    6. Rahman, Tauhidur & Mittelhammer, Ron C. & Wandschneider, Philip R., 2011. "Measuring quality of life across countries: A multiple indicators and multiple causes approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 43-52, February.
    7. D K Despotis, 2005. "A reassessment of the human development index via data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(8), pages 969-980, August.
    8. Garfield O. Blake, 2015. "Using Increases in Criminal Deportees from the US to Estimate the Effect of Crime on Economic Growth and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean," Laws, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-18, November.
    9. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2008. "Inequality and the growth-poverty nexus: specification empirics using African data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(7), pages 563-566.
    10. Salih, Siddig Abdulmageed, 2011. "Comprehensive Human Development: Realities and Aspirations," Islamic Economic Studies, The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), vol. 19, pages 19-49.
    11. Udaya S. Mishra & Vachaspati Shukla, 2015. "Welfare Comparisons with Multidimensional Well-Being Indicators: An Indian Illustration," Working Papers id:7095, eSocialSciences.
    12. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2010. "Inequality, Income, and Poverty: Comparative Global Evidence," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1432-1446, December.
    13. Elizabeth Stanton, 2007. "The Human Development Index: A History," Working Papers wp127, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    14. Fay, Marianne & Leipziger, Danny & Wodon, Quentin & Yepes, Tito, 2005. "Achieving child-health-related Millennium Development Goals: The role of infrastructure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1267-1284, August.
    15. Jeffrey M. Lacker, 1991. "Why is there debt?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 77(Jul), pages 3-19.
    16. Hannelore Weck-Hannemann, 1987. "Politisch-ökonomische Bestimmungsgründe der Vergabe von Entwicklungshilfe: Eine empirische Untersuchung für die Schweiz," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 123(IV), pages 501-529, December.
    17. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2010. "Inequality, Income, and Poverty: Comparative Global Evidence," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(s1), pages 1432-1446.
    18. Stefano Mainardi, 2003. "Testing convergence in life expectancies: count regression models on panel data," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2003(4), pages 350-370.
    19. Davis, Graham A., 1995. "Learning to love the Dutch disease: Evidence from the mineral economies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(10), pages 1765-1779, October.
    20. Aggarwal, Bhavya & Chakraborty, Lekha S, 2015. "Towards 2030 UN Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals: Technical Challenges in Measuring the Gender Inequality for Asia Pacific," MPRA Paper 67049, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mth:ieb888:v:8:y:2022:i:1:p:1-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Technical Support Office The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Technical Support Office to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ieb .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.