Bloom, David E.
[Author];
Fan, Victoria Y.
[Author];
Kufenko, Vadim
[Author];
Ogbuoji, Osondu
[Author];
Prettner, Klaus
[Author];
Yamey, Gavin
[Author]
Description:
Per capita GDP has limited use as a well-being indicator because it does not capture many dimensions that imply a "good life", such as health and equality of opportunity. However, per capita GDP has the virtues of easy interpretation and can be calculated with manageable data requirements. Against this backdrop, a need exists for a measure of well-being that preserves the advantages of per capita GDP, but also includes health and equality. We propose a new parsimonious indicator to fill this gap and calculate it for 149 countries.