Mismeasuring Our Lives

I scan the book on Mismeasuring Our Lives from Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fittousi. This book captures the result of the commission lead by those three people that are built by Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France to evaluate the current worldwide used of measurement the GDP.

The main factors why GDP measurement needs to be criticized is because it does not initially form to measure people well being but to capture the economic activity in the market. So, GDP could not and does not bother with the environmental sustainability, equality and balance of income distribution and also the informal market.

There are 11 recommendations from the commission to be considered to have the better measurement. But for me, the most important is the recommendation to acknowledge that well being is multi-dimensional.

So that to better measure it, the measurement should mind the following issues:
1. Material living standard (income, consumption, and wealth)
2. Health
3. Education
4. Personal activity including work
5. Political voice and governance
6. Social connections and relationship
7. Environment (present and future condition)
8. Insecurity, of an economic as well as a physical nature

This book is written following the commission report in 2009. I believe the eight multidimensional aspects and the recommendations of the commission have been widely discussed by political leaders, policymakers, academician and NGO activist of whom the target of this report is being published.