TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jones,Charles I.
AU  - Klenow,Peter J.
TI  - Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16352
PY  - 2010
Y2  - September 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16352
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16352.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Charles I. Jones
Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305-4800
Tel: 510/288-8650
Fax: 650/725-0468
E-Mail: chad.jones@stanford.edu

Peter J. Klenow
Department of Economics
579 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA  94305-6072
Tel: 650/725-8169
Fax: NA
E-Mail: Klenow@Stanford.edu
AB  - We propose a simple summary statistic for a nation’s flow of welfare, measured as a consumption equivalent, and compute its level and growth rate for a broad set of countries. This welfare metric combines data on consumption, leisure, inequality, andmortality. Although it is highly correlatedwith per capita GDP, deviations are often economically significant: Western Europe looks considerably closer to U.S. living standards, emerging Asia has not caught up as much, and many African and Latin American countries appear farther behind. Each of the four components we introduce plays an important role in accounting for these differences.
ER  -