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The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) for Utah 1990-2007
Measuring quality of life,
not just market transactions See our new video!
Traditional metrics for economic progress, like the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), measure monetary transactions. But not all monetary transactions are good for our societal well-being. And many factors
that improve our quality of life, such as volunteer work and the benefits of a clean environment, aren’t measured because
they aren’t bought or sold.
The Genuine
Progress Indicator (GPI) provides us with an alternative measure that offers a more holistic view of our quality of life.
By placing a dollar value on many factors that contribute to our well-being (economic, societal, and environmental), the GPI
provides a useful tool to look at the trade-offs policy makers face when making decisions about using any resources and planning
for the future.
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| See also the results graphs at the bottom of this webpage and also on our vital signs page.. |
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About
the GPI report:
Since the
late 1980s, economists have developed GPI methodologies to study trends in well-being of countries around the globe. The methodologies
have also been applied on local levels, with studies in Vermont, Ohio, Minnesota, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Maryland.
The Utah GPI report is the first of its kind in the intermountain west. This assessment reveals trends between 1990 and 2007,
the latest year with available data. The Utah GPI report was funded by us, Utah Population and Environment Coalition as a
part of our ongoing Utah Vital Signs project.
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GPI seeks to address GDP shortcomings: By taking personal
consumption level as its starting point and adjusting it for income distribution; adding the value of housework, volunteer
work, higher education; deducting a host of costs, such as the cost of crime, commuting, lost leisure time, pollution, the
loss of natural resource function (wetlands, farmland, forests). When this
methodology is applied to the U.S., the real GPI is found to have grown more slowly over the 1950 – 2004 period compared
to the growth in real GDP, both overall and in per capita terms.
Per capita real GPI
is stagnant, particularly after 1980, suggesting that the additional expenditures and costs of economic growth are
offsetting the additional benefits associated with increased personal consumption, nonmarket work and capital services.
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Is Utah Making Real Progress? In short, we are making genuine
improvements in quality of life. But there are indications that several critical contributors to our well-being are
eroding at an accelerated rate. Please download the study or our summaries to learn
more! More Background:
In January 2011, the Utah Population and Environment Coalition
has released to the public the above report with results of Utah
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). The GPI is an alternative to
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that seeks to measure the economic well-being of society.
The
shortcomings of GDP in measuring wellbeing are well-known. The GDP is a tally of all the monetary transactions that have taken
place in the sale of final goods and services in a given year. As such, it does not take into account the level of income
inequality and the non-monetary activities that contribute to our well-being, it does not differentiate between the quality
of our spending (i.e. whether or not they are a net addition to our well-being), and it does not account for the depletion
of natural resources in the course of production of goods and services. These and other weaknesses of GDP have been a source
of criticism since the late 1960s and have fueled a search for alternative measures. The shortcomings of GDP are detailed
in a recent report by the international Commission on the Measurement of Economic
Performance and Social Performance headed by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University (http://stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm).
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