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New statistics for old?—measuring the wellbeing of the UK
Author(s) -
Allin Paul,
Hand David J.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of the royal statistical society: series a (statistics in society)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.103
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-985X
pISSN - 0964-1998
DOI - 10.1111/rssa.12188
Subject(s) - comparability , dominance (genetics) , gross domestic product , national accounts , sustainability , official statistics , economic statistics , economic growth , public economics , political science , economics , statistics , accounting , econometrics , ecology , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , combinatorics , biology , gene
Summary Attempts to create measures of national wellbeing and progress have a long history. In the UK, they go back at least as far as the 1790s, with Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland . More recently, worldwide interest has led to the creation of various indices seeking to go beyond familiar economic measures like gross domestic product. We review the ‘Measuring national well‐being’ development programme of the UK's Office for National Statistics and explore some of the challenges which need to be faced to bring wider measures into use. These include the importance of getting the measures adopted as policy drivers, how to challenge the continuing dominance of economic measures, sustainability and environmental issues, international comparability and methodological statistical questions.