Measuring our quality of life — why is the world looking beyond GDP?

When the term Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was developed in the 1930s the market value of all goods and services produced within a country was considered to be the best indicator of a country’s standard of living. Now it’s widely recognised that other factors have to be taken into account when looking at a country’s success as a happy, safe place to live. Prof Stephen Bartos, advocates exploring how the ‘economics of happiness’ can be used to inform national policy.

Gross domestic product per capita is a useful, measure of national well-being from an economic perspective.

The severity of the 1930s Great Depression highlighted the need for a tool to assist policy makers to understand the state of their economies, and most importantly whether the policies they had in place were effective.

Measuring Australia’s economic and social progress

Australian measures of life satisfaction have declined in recent years, despite solid growth in GDP.  The Global Access Partners Task Force on Progress in Society, established following the 2010 National Economic Review Summit, has been exploring how the ‘economics of happiness’ could be used to inform national policy.

Since last year, a group of senior public sector, private sector and academic thinkers, brought together under the auspices of Sydney-based public policy think tank Global Access Partners (GAP), has been addressing the issue of measures of progress. 

Measures to start addressing affordable rental housing

It is now widely accepted that Australia has a huge housing affordability problem. Indeed, rarely a day goes by in the media without discussion of house prices, interest rates, first home buyers, and the lack of affordability.

WA Housing Roundtable

This is a sector that has been in crisis for so long that the word barely holds meaning; people simply should not have to work under this kind of stress and official neglect.

Many Faces to the Housing Crisis

The Government should allocate more resources towards the provision of public and community housing as a matter of urgency. Unfortunately, that's a much harder sell to the electorate than the First Home Buyers Grant.

A tax for everything

If we want to encourage more people to enter the housing market, there needs to be some incentive for them to do so.